i'KJ'Yf.m' M I !'V K  fftOkt UbfriiS  If.  <  V; i* i\'Q  •' 


BV  4571  . B6  1923 

Bowie,  Walter  Russell, 
1969. 

The  armor  of  youth 


1882 


/  . 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/armorofyouthtalkOObowi 


The  Armor  of  Youth 


WORKS  BY 

Walter  Russell  Bowie,  D.D. 

Rector  Grace  Church ,  New  York 


\ The  Armor  of  Youth 

Sermons  for  Young  Folks  .  .  .  #1.25 

A  new  volume  of  addresses  fresh  and  spontane¬ 
ous  in  their  subjects,  and  phrased  in  simple  and 
familiar  language. 

The  Road  of  the  Star 

And  Other  Sermons . $1.50 

A  volume  of  addresses,  which  bring  the  message 
of  Christianity  with  fresh  and  kindling  interpreta¬ 
tion  to  the  immediate  needs  of  men. 

Sunny  Windows 

And  Other  Sermons  for  Children  .  $1.25 

A  new  volume  of  Dr.  Bowie’s  suggestive  ser¬ 
mons  to  children  of  which  The  Record  of  Christian 
IVork  so  aptly  remarked  : 

“  Dr.  Bowie’s  talks  are  capital — straight  to  the 
hearts  of  children,  clever,  interesting,  helpful.” 

The  Children’s  Year 

Fifty-two  Five  Minute  Talks  with  Chil¬ 
dren  .  .  .  #1.25 

"  Few  men  have  shown  greater  gifts  in  preach¬ 
ing  to  children.  The  value  of  these  sermons  as 
helps  to  parents  and  Sunday  School  teachers,  and 
as  suggestions  to  ministers,  will  be  at  once  ap¬ 
parent.  The  lessons  drawn  will  suggest  other  ap¬ 
plications  ;  every  message  helps  to  make  Christ 
and  His  message  more  winsome.” 

— Henry  Sloane  Coffin,  D.D. 


The  Armor  of  Youth 


WALTER  RUSSELL  BOWIE,  D.  D. 

Rector,  Grace  Church,  New  York 


Author  of"  The  Children's  Year,"  "Sunny  Windows" 
“  The  Road  of  the  Star"  etc . 


New  York  Chicago 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 


London  and 


Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1923,  by 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  75  Princes  Street 


To 

Jean ,  Beverley ,  Elisabeth ,  and  Russell. 

To 

Mate  and  Mel , 
awd  to 

all  the  other  boys  and  girls  whose  eyes  have  looked 
up  to  the  pulpit  in  St.  Paul's. 


Contents 


1.  The  Armor  op  Youth . 9 

2.  Keeping  On . 15 

3.  The  House  We  Live  In  ....  18 

4.  Blazing  the  Trail . 22 

5.  The  Singing  Bird . 26 

6.  Many  Voices . 29 

7.  Courage  in  the  Cold . 32 

8.  The  Listening  Time . 35 

9.  How  to  Make  the  Good  Things  Grow  .  39 

10.  Blossoms  Which  Must  Wither  ...  42 

11.  Dangers  We  Do  Not  See  ....  46 

12.  How  Not  to  Fear  the  Frost  ...  51 

13.  “I  Came  Here  to  Fight”  ....  55 

14.  Boys  Who  Would  Not  Be  Beaten  .  .  58 

15.  Forts  on  Wheels . 63 

16.  The  Cross  Made  Out  of  Palms  ...  68 

17.  The  Marred  Face  of  Christ  ...  73 

18.  The  Judgments  of  Jesus  ....  76 

19.  The  Wings  of  the  Maple  ....  79 

20.  The  Son  of  God’s  Train  .  .  .  .81 


8 


CONTENTS 


21.  Builders  of  Dreams  .... 

22.  The  Heroism  of  Holding  On 

23.  Service  Flags . 

24.  “Take  a  Little  Honey" 

25.  Settling  the  Muddy  Waters 

26.  Cranks,  and  Self-Starters 

27.  Horses,  and  Mules,  and  People 

28.  Hitting  the  Mark  .... 

29.  Playing  a  Man's  Game 

30.  Pillars  of  the  Temple 

31.  “Right  Side  Up  With  Care" 

32.  Ships  of  Hope . 

33.  The  Good  Spirits . 

34.  Ripening  the  Grapes  .... 

35.  Nails,  and  How  to  Use  Them  . 

36.  Preventing  Fires . 

37.  The  Smothered  Light  .... 

38.  “Shine  Inside" . 

39.  “Keep  to  the  Right"  .... 

40.  Whose  Face  Belongs  in  the  Window? 

41.  “Weigh  Yourself"  .... 

42.  The  Real  Way  to  be  Happy 

43.  A  Boy  Who  is  a  Preacher  . 

44.  Clinkers . 

45.  The  Love  of  God,  and  Christmas 


.  86 
.  92 

.  97 
.  100 
.  104 
.  108 
.  Ill 
.  114 
.  117 
.  121 
.  126 
.  129 
.  134 
.  137 
.  141 
.  145 
.  148 
.  150 
.  153 
.  156 
.  159 
.  162 
.  166 
.  169 
.  172 


1 


THE  AEMOR  OF  YOUTH 


THE  name  of  this  book  is  “  The  Armor  of 
Youth/7  and  if  any  boy  or  girl  whose 
eyes  are  on  this  page  wants  to  know  why 
that  should  be  the  book’s  name,  and  what  it  means, 
the  best  thing  to  do  is  to  open  the  Bible  and  read 
the  glorious  old  story  which  is  written  in  the  seven¬ 
teenth  chapter  of  the  first  book  of  Samuel.  It  is 
the  story  of  David  and  Goliath. 

You  remember  that  the  army  of  Israel  had  gone 
out  to  battle  against  the  Philistines.  Sometimes 
the  men  of  Israel  had  been  able  to  defeat  the  Phi¬ 
listines  and  to  drive  them  away ;  but  this  time  there 
was  a  terrifying  difficulty.  The  Philistines  had 
one  huge  warrior,  so  tall  and  strong  that  he  was  like 
a  giant.  Nearly  eleven  feet  tall,  he  was,  and  he 
wore  armor  which  no  ordinary  man  could  possibly 
have  carried.  On  his  head  was  a  helmet  of  brass 
which  flashed  in  the  sun,  and  the  greaves  on  his 
legs  and  the  armor  round  his  shoulders  were  also 
of  brass.  He  carried  a  spear  with  an  iron  head, 
and  a  shaft  that  looked  as  thick  as  a  growing  tree, 
and  a  great  sword  hung  at  his  waist.  Out  he  came 
toward  the  army  of  Israel  every  day,  shouting  de¬ 
fiance  in  a  voice  of  scorn,  and  the  men  of  Israel 

trembled  when  they  saw  him.  He  dared  any  war- 

9 


10  THE  ARMOR  OF  YOUTH 

rior  in  the  camp  of  Israel  to  come  out  and  fight 
with  him;  but  no  man  dared,  not  even  Saul  the 

King. 

Then  into  the  camp  came  David.  It  was  more 
or  less  by  accident  that  he  came  at  the  particular 
time  when  he  did.  He  had  probably  never  heard 
about  Goliath;  but  he  had  three  brothers  in  the 
army,  and  his  father  had  sent  him  down  to  find  out 
how  the  brothers  were,  and  to  bring  them  some 
things  to  eat.  He  arrived  at  the  very  moment  when 
the  two  armies  were  drawn  up  for  battle,  and  when 
Goliath  strode  out  in  front  of  the  Philistines.  At 
sight  of  him,  there  was  a  panic  among  the  soldiers 
of  Israel.  They  commenced  to  turn  and  get  away 
from  danger  as  fast  as  they  could;  and  as  they 
passed  David,  and  he  began  to  ask  what  all  the 
confusion  and  terror  were  about,  they  shouted  to 
him  of  Goliath. 

But,  strange  to  say,  David  did  not  seem  to  be 
afraid.  He  was  the  only  person  on  the  side  of 
Israel  who  happened  to  be  not  in  the  least  dis¬ 
turbed.  He  said  that  he  would  take  up  the  battle 
with  Goliath  himself.  “  Let  no  man's  heart  fail 
because  of  him,"  he  said.  “  I  will  go  and  fight 
with  this  Philistine." 

When  Saul  the  King  heard  that,  the  soldier-heart 
in  him  was  glad.  He  knew  courage  when  he  saw 
it.  He  said  he  would  give  his  own  armor  to  David. 
The  helmet,  and  coat  of  mail,  and  sword  of  the 
King  himself  should  David  use. 


THE  ARMOR  OF  YOUTH 


11 


So  David  tried  on  Saul’s  armor.  But  lie  could 
not  wear  it.  It  did  not  fit  him,  and  he  felt  awk¬ 
ward  and  hindered,  instead  of  helped.  He  put  it 
aside,  and  went  out  to  dare  Goliath  with  nothing 
except  his  shepherd’s  sling  and  a  handful  of  smooth 
stones  which  he  picked  up  beside  a  brook.  But 
these  were  enough ;  for  before  the  great,  huge, 
heavy  Goliath  could  come  near  him,  David  swung 
his  sling,  and  a  stone  whistled  through  the  air  and 
struck  the  giant  squarely  in  the  middle  of  his  fore¬ 
head,  so  that  he  came  crashing  down  to  earth  and 
lay  there  dead. 

David  did  not  need  Saul’s  armor.  It  did  not  fit 
him,  and  I  expect  that  David  thought  to  himself 
also  that  it  did  not  work.  Helmets  of  brass  and 
coats  of  mail  might  seem  all  very  well  to  protect  a 
man’s  body;  but  it  did  not  seem  as  though  they 
could  protect  his  heart.  In  spite  of  all  his  armor, 
Saul  had  been  struck  by  fear.  The  fear  of  Goliath 
had  overcome  him  as  surely  as  any  sword  could  do. 
His  brass  and  his  iron  could  not  defend  him  from 
being  afraid. 

When  David  refused  Saul’s  armor,  it  looked  as 
though  he  went  out  to  meet  Goliath  with  no  armor 
at  all.  He  had  no  armor  on  which  anyone  could 
see.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  wore  the  most 
powerful  armor  which  anybody  can  possess.  It  was 
the  armor  of  youth.  It  was  not  outside  on  his 
body,  but  inside,  all  round  about  his  heart. 

How  can  we  win  this  armor  of  youth,  and  what 


12 


THE  ARMOR  OF  YOUTH 


is  it  made  of  ?  Does  every  boy  and  every  girl  have 
it  just  by  being  young?  No,  not  always.  Every 
young  life  can  have  it,  but  it  depends  upon  whether 
or  not  we  let  God  s  hands  take  the  strength  of 
youth  which  might  be  in  us  and  make  it  into 
armor. 

How  did  this  happen  for  David  ?  He  tells  us  of 
it  himself.  Before  he  came  down  to  the  camp  of 
Israel,  he  used  to  be  a  shepherd  boy.  There  in  the 
hill  pastures,  alone  with  the  sheep,  he  had  much 
time  to  think;  and  he  used  to  think  of  God.  He 
would  think  of  what  God  might  want  him  to  do, 
and  of  how  he  could  please  God  best.  One  thing 
he  was  sure  of.  To  please  God  so  that  he  might 
be  fit  for  great  service  to-morrow,  he  must  be  faith¬ 
ful  to  whatever  he  had  to  do,  big  or  little,  every 
day.  Since  he  was  tending  sheep,  he  must  tend 
sheep  well.  So  when  one  day  a  lion  sprang  out 
from  the  rocks  upon  one  of  the  lambs,  David  did 
not  run  away;  and  another  day  when  a  bear  at¬ 
tacked  the  flock,  again  he  did  not  run  away.  He 
asked  God  to  help  him,  and  he  stayed  to  defend  the 
sheep.  Probably  he  was  a  very  much  frightened 
boy,  up  there  in  the  hills,  fighting  all  alone  against 
a  lion  and  a  bear;  but  frightened  or  not,  he  stuck 
to  his  duty,  and  he  drove  the  wdld  beasts  away. 
Then,  later,  he  realized  what  had  happened.  He 
had  gained  the  assurance  that  God  would  help  him 
in  everything  which  God  set  him  to  do.  “  The 
Lord  is  the  strength  of  my  life,”  he  could  say;  “  of 


THE  ARMOR  OF  YOUTH 


13 


whom  then  shall  I  be  afraid  ?  ”  He  had  learned 
the  power  of  faithfulness,  and  that  made  him  have 
faith  in  himself  for  whatever  might  happen  to¬ 
morrow.  His  heart  was  made  strong  with  confi¬ 
dence  and  courage,  and  that  was  the  armor  of 
youth. 

All  of  us  can  have  that  sort  of  armor  round  our 
hearts  if  we  really  want  it.  Saul’s  kind  of  armor 
is  not  worth  very  much.  It  is  only  the  brass  and 
iron  of  an  outward  show.  It  is  only  the  second¬ 
hand  advice  of  somebody  else.  But  every  time  we 
do  a  fine  act  of  faithfulness,  as  David  did,  every 
time  we  stand  up  to  a  hard  duty  when  it  would  be 
easier  to  run  away,  every  time  we  try  to  please  God 
when  no  one  else  might  ever  know,  we  are  fashion¬ 
ing  our  own  armor.  We  are  girding  our  hearts 
with  courage  and  strength  so  that  nothing  can  get 
through  to  make  us  afraid.  We  are  creating  the 
armor  of  youth  which  can  make  us  brave,  as  David 
was,  to  go  out  on  every  valiant  service  for  God, 
knowing  that  not  even  Goliath  can  stand  against 
us. 

So  there  could  be  no  better  thing  for  any  book 
to  do  than  to  help  boys  and  girls  understand  the 
way  to  fashion  the  armor  of  youth.  It  is  fashioned 
by  thoughts,  and  by  deeds,  and  by  all  right  choices 
and  good  desires.  Every  idea  which  strengthens 
our  sense  of  duty  is  a  hammer-stroke  which  rivets 
the  armor  of  the  heart.  Every  fine  interest  which 
makes  us  enthusiastic  in  a  right  cause  is  like  fire 


14 


THE  ARMOR  OF  YOUTH 


to  weld  it.  Every  thought  of  cheerful  goodness  is 
the  light  that  brightens  it.  We  bind  the  armor 
about  us  whenever  we  think  nobly,  and  plan  gener¬ 
ously,  and  do  the  things  we  know  are  fine  and  true. 
Perhaps  the  chapters  in  this  book  will  help  to  re¬ 
mind  us  what  these  things  are,  and  this  first  chap¬ 
ter  of  all  will  have  done  enough  if  it  makes  us  want 
to  be  reminded. 


KEEPING  ON 


e 


NEW  Year’s  Day,  when  we  turn  the  leaves 
to  a  new  calendar,  and  write  a  new  date 
at  the  top  of  our  letters,  is  the  time  when 
many  people  make  what  they  call  their  “  New  Year 
Resolutions.”  The  Old  Year  is  finished,  and  its 
record  rolled  up,  and  we  start  afresh.  How  nice 
it  would  he,  we  think,  if  we  can  make  everything 
better  than  we  did  last  year.  We  will  try  to  stop 
doing  something  we  may  have  been  doing  which  we 
know  is  wrong  or  mistaken.  We  will  try  to  begin 
to  do  something  else  which  is  helpful  and  fine. 

Then  sometimes  people  get  discouraged.  They 
say,  a  What  is  the  use  of  making  new  resolutions  ? 
After  all,  things  do  not  change  much.  Life  goes 
on  apparently  the  same  from  one  year  to  another. 
People  may  think  we  are  foolish  if  we  try  to  start 
out  on  a  different  line.” 

When  we  feel  that  way,  it  is  good  to  stop  and 
think  of  all  the  fine  things  which  have  been  accom¬ 
plished  in  this  world  by  the  men  who  have  had  the 
courage  to  try,  and  to  keep  on  trying.  Samuel 
Morse,  the  man  who  invented  the  telegraph,  has 
left  us  the  story  of  how  he  might  have  been  dis- 


16 


KEEPING  ON 


couraged  and  have  given  np  entirely  if  he  had  de¬ 
pended  on  what  other  people  thought  and  said.  He 
was  labouring  on  his  instrument,  and  trying  to 
figure  out  something  which  would  work,  and  for 
a  long,  long  time  it  was  so  crude  and  awkward  that 
he  would  not  show  it  to  anyone,  knowing  that  they 
would  laugh  at  it,  and  think  the  whole  idea  no 
more  than  nonsense.  But  all  the  time,  secretly  and 
with  patience,  he  studied  and  thought,  and  changed 
and  experimented;  and  at  last  he  worked  his  idea 
out  triumphantly,  and  the  telegraph,  which  nobody 
else  had  dreamed  of,  was  made  into  a  fact. 

In  the  same  way,  when  Robert  Fulton  was  build¬ 
ing  the  first  steamboat,  people  called  it  ec  Fulton’s 
Folly.”  Everybody  shrugged  their  shoulders  when 
they  heard  that  he  was  trying  to  make  a  boat  which 
would  go  without  any  sails  or  need  of  wind  to  blow 
it.  “  Never  did  a  single  encouraging  word  or 
bright  hope  cross  my  path,”  he  wrote.  He  had  to 
keep  struggling  on  in  his  own  lonely  courage.  But 
at  last  he  also  triumphed,  and  made  the  thing 
which  he  had  set  out  to  make.  And  now  on  all  the 
rivers,  and  across  all  the  seas,  go  the  great  steam¬ 
ships  which  are  possible  because  one  man  who  had 
the  idea  kept  on  trying,  until  he  had  worked  out 
what  nobody  else  thought  could  be  made. 

Then  in  the  things  which  we  make,  not  with  our 
hands,  but  with  our  hearts  and  inward  hopes,  there 
is  the  same  need  of  steady  courage  in  the  face  of 
those  who  laugh.  I  suppose  when  the  disciples  of 


KEEPING  ON 


IT 


Jesus  went  out  to  carry  His  message  to  the  world, 
and  to  make  all  the  world  at  length  the  Kingdom 
of  Christ,  men  laughed  at  them.  Doubtless  some  of 
his  friends  thought  St.  Paul  had  lost  his  mind 
when  he  set  out  from  Antioch  to  go  through  Asia 
Minor,  and  into  Greece  and  Pome,  into  wide  coun¬ 
tries  and  great  cities  where  Christ  had  never  even 
been  heard  of,  to  build  the  churches  that  were  to 
he.  But  he  never  stopped  before  any  discourage¬ 
ment.  In  spite  of  difficulty,  in  spite  of  loneliness, 
and  everything  that  anyone  might  say  or  do,  he 
kept  on,  determined  to  finish  God’s  great  work' 
which  he  believed  in.  And  the  words  which  he 
wrote  in  one  of  his  letters  are  good  for  all  of  us 
to  learn  and  live  by.  If  things  were  hard  to-day, 
he  set  his  heart  all  the  more  bravely  to  go  on  un¬ 
dismayed  to-morrow.  “  Forgetting  those  things 
which  are  behind,”  he  said,  “  and  reaching  forth 
unto  those  things  which  are  before,  I  press  on.” 


3 


THE  HOUSE  WE  LIVE  IN 


HIS  time  we  shall  begin  with  a  text  and 
end  with  a  story.  The  text  is  from  the 
Hew  Testament,  and  these  are  the  words 
of  it:  “  Ye  are  God’s  building.” 

God  sets  every  single  one  of  us  to  building  a 
house.  When  we  stop  to  think  of  it,  we  shall  see 
how  this  is  so. 

This  house  we  live  in  is  made  up  of  our  thoughts 
and  of  our  deeds.  Every  time  we  think  something, 
whether  good  or  bad,  and  every  time  we  do  some¬ 
thing,  whether  good  or  bad,  we  are  making  the 
house  that  our  minds  and  hearts  must  dwell  in.  It 
may  be  a  very  beautiful  house,  or  a  very  mean  and 
ugly  one.  We  can  have  it  one  sort  or  the  other, 
according  to  the  way  we  choose. 

Take,  for  example,  the  boy  who  begins  to  go  to 

school,  and  plays  with  other  boys,  and  talks  with 

them  and  hears  them  talk.  Some  day  he  may  hear 

things  that  are  not  good  to  hear.  Some  boy  will 

begin  to  use  vile  language  and  profanity,  which  he 

picks  up  and  repeats  because  he  thinks  it  is  smart 

and  does  not  know  any  better.  Or  some  ugly  story 

is  started  which  the  boy  knows  he  would  be 

ashamed  for  his  mother  to  hear.  If  he  listens  to 

18 


THE  HOUSE  WE  LIVE  IN 


19 


that  sort  of  talk,  and  builds  his  own  thought  out 
of  it,  presently  his  house  will  be  all  made  up  of 
ugly  and  grimy  things.  The  tramp  who  slinks 
along  the  road  may  live  in  a  dirty  shed  because  he 
has  nowhere  else  to  live,  and  the  boy  who  deliber¬ 
ately  begins  to  build  ugly  thoughts  is  making  his 
mind  live  in  a  shed.  It  may  be  even  wTorse  for 
him  than  it  is  for  the  tramp,  for  the  tramp  may 
live  in  a  shed  because  he  cannot  help  it;  but  the 
boy  who  gathers  vile  thoughts  to  put  his  mind  in 
is  making  a  shed  deliberately,  when  he  might  have 
made  something  beautiful  and  fine. 

But  suppose,  on  the  other  hand,  that  a  boy  de¬ 
termines  to  think,  as  St.  Paul  said  we  ought  to 
think,  of  that  which  is  “  true,  and  lovely,  and  hon¬ 
ourable,  and  of  good  report.”  Then  he  is  building 
for  his  mind  a  house  high  and  lofty  and  beautiful, 
with  great  sunny  spaces,  and  with  windows  looking 
up  to  the  skies  of  God.  When  his  mind  lives  in 
that  sort  of  a  house,  the  low  and  common  thoughts 
cannot  reach  it.  They  would  not  dare  to  come  into 
a  house  that  looked  like  that. 

So  it  is  also  with  things  we  do.  Let  boys  and 
girls  be  truthful  and  courageous,  let  them  stand  up 
for  some  right  thing  at  some  moment  when  the 
wrong  is  popular,  let  them  stand  by  the  other  boy 
or  girl  who  is  being  unfairly  treated,  and  every 
such  fine  act  is  like  a  great  stone  laid  in  the  walls 
of  character.  After  awhile  it  will  be  as  though 
they  lived  in  a  castle,  made  so  strong  by  all  the 


20 


THE  HOUSE  WE  LIVE  IN 


high,  brave  choices  that  not  even  the  very  sugges¬ 
tion  of  meanness  can  get  close  enough  to  hurt 
them. 

But  suppose  somebody  does  not  realize  all  that. 
Suppose  you  do  not  realize  that  the  thoughts  you 
think  and  the  deeds  you  do  make  the  house  in 
which  you  yourself  must  live.  Suppose  you 
imagine  that  being  brave  and  true  and  unselfish 
may  be  very  good  for  the  other  person  whom  you 
are  brave  and  true  and  unselfish  for,  but  does  not 
do  any  good  to  you.  Sometimes  boys  and  girls  do 
get  that  notion.  They  think  that  it  is  too  much 
trouble  to  try  to  be  good,  that  their  fathers  and 
mothers  and  Sunday-school  teachers  and  friends 
who  tell  them  what  is  the  fine  way  to  think  and 
act  are  doing  it  just  because  they  choose  to  think 
so,  and  it  will  not  really  make  any  difference  to  the 
boys  and  girls  themselves.  But  that  is  a  great  mis¬ 
take,  and  to  show  you  the  sort  of  mistake  it  is,  I 
will  tell  you  the  story  which  I  spoke  of  at  first. 

Once  upon  a  time — so  the  story  runs — there  was 
a  rich  man  who  had  a  poor  neighbour.  The  poor 
man  was  a  carpenter,  and  he  had  no  money,  and 
very  little  work,  and  he  lived  in  a  very  dingy  house. 
So  one  day  the  rich  man  had  a  fine  idea,  and  he 
sent  for  the  carpenter  and  said  to  him,  “  I  am 
going  away,  and  while  I  am  gone  I  want  to  give 
you  the  work  of  building  a  house.  You  shall  go 
to  work  on  it  while  I  am  gone,  and  put  the  best 
materials  in  it,  and  build  it  as  well  as  you  know 


21 


THE  HOUSE  WE  LIVE  IN 


Low.  And  when  I  have  come  back,  yon  can  tell  me 
how  much  it  all  cost,  the  materials  yon  pnt  into  it, 
and  your  own  labour,  and  everything,  and  I  will 
pay  you.”  So  he  pointed  out  a  sunny  hill-top 
where  the  house  was  to  be,  and  went  away.  Then 
the  carpenter  began  to  build,  and  presently  he 
thought  to  himself,  “  The  rich  man  has  gone  away 
and  he  will  not  know  what  I  am  going  to  do.  In¬ 
stead  of  putting  in  fine  material  I  will  put  in  cheap 
stuff  and  charge  him  for  it  as  though  it  were  the 
best.  Then  I  shall  make  more  money.”  So  that 
was  what  he  did.  He  put  in  poor  material,  and 
worked  carelessly,  and  after  awhile  the  man  for 


u 


a 


whom  he  was  building  came  back. 

I  have  finished  the  house,”  said  the  carpenter. 
Oh,  that  is  fine!  ”  said  the  rich  man.  “  And 
now,  although  you  did  not  know  it,  you  have  been 
building  it  for  yourself,  for  I  meant  you  to  have 

it,  and  I  am  giving  it  to  you.” 

Then  I  suppose  the  carpenter  began  to  feel  as 
though  he  were  shriveled  up  inside,  for  he  had  gone 
and  built  the  meanest  house  he  could  think  of,  and 

he  never  knew  that  it  was  his  own. 

So  that  is  the  way  it  is  with  us.  We  are  God’s 
building.  We  build  our  character  for  Him  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  beautiful,  bright  plans  He  gives  us.  Hut 
though  we  build  for  Him,  we  build  for  ourselves, 
too.  Eor  the  character  we  build,  we  ourselves 
must  live  in.  And  when  we  remember  tnat,  it  will 
make  us  eager  to  be  building  nobly  every  day. 


4 


BLAZING  THE  TRAIL 


YOU  can  all  see  what  this  is.  It  is  a  piece 
of  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  with  three  notches 
cut  in  it.  The  notches  have  cut  the  dark 
bark  clear  away,  and  you  can  see  the  white  wood 
of  the  heart  of  the  tree  trunk  underneath.  Boys 
and  girls  who  have  walked  in  the  woods  much — 
especially  the  deep  woods  off  in  the  wild  places — 
know  what  these  cuts  are  called.  They  are  blazes. 
When  anyone  goes  through  a  thick  wood  and  wants 
to  mark  the  way  so  that  he  himself  can  follow  it 
again,  or  someone  else  can  find  it,  he  will  take  a 
hatchet  and  chop  these  blazes  on  the  tree.  They 
are  signs  which  mark  the  path  from  one  part  of  the 
forest  to  the  other. 

In  the  oldest  of  all  the  States  in  America — the 

one  to  which  the  first  colonists  came  from  England 

more  than  three  hundred  years  ago — there  is  an 

old,  old  road  called  the  “  Three-Chopt  Road.”  It 

was  there  when  the  Indians  used  to  go  back  and 

forth  across  the  country  from  which  long  since  the 

white  man  has  driven  them  away.  It  was  there 

when  the  British  troops  were  marching  in  the  days 

of  the  Revolution.  It  was  called  the  Three-Chopt 

22 


BLAZING  THE  TRAIL  23 

Road  because  it  was  marked  by  three  blazes  on  the 
trees. 

It  was  a  fine  thing  that  the  old  pioneers  did  in 
the  early  days.  The  pioneers  were  the  ones  who 
went  ahead  and  made  the  roads  and  marked  them 
out  for  others.  They  dared  the  dangers  first  so  that 
others  could  come  after  them  in  safety.  They  did 
the  difficult  work  so  that  the  others  would  find  it 
not  so  hard. 

The  old  days  of  blazing  roads  through  the  forests 
are  mostly  over,  but  there  are  other  roads  which 
still  need  to  be  blazed,  and  every  boy  and  girl  can 
help  to  blaze  them.  They  are  the  roads  of  behav¬ 
iour,  and  they  need  to  be  made  fresh  every  day. 
People  are  apt  to  follow  where  others  have  showed 
the  way.  If  one  boy  will  blaze  a  good  road,  other 
boys  will  find  it  easier  to  be  brave  and  honourable 
and  pure.  If  one  girl  will  mark  the  way  of  gentle¬ 
ness  and  loving-kindness,  other  girls  will  be  more 
apt  to  go  that  way. 

St  Paul  said  there  were  three  things  which 
lasted  when  everything  else  should  pass  away 
three  things  which  it  would  be  always  well  to  fol¬ 
low.  They  are  faith  and  hope  and  love.  We  can 
use  them  to  make  the  blazes  on  our  Three-Chopt 
Road. 

Pirst  is  the  blaze  of  faith.  Paith  is  the  spirit 
which  dares  to  trust  in  some  great,  beautiful  pos¬ 
sibility  which  is  not  proven  yet,  but  which  we  mean 
to  prove  by  the  very  fact  of  trusting  it  and  daring 


24 


BLAZING  THE  TRAIL 


to  go  ahead.  If  you  will  read  the  eleventh  chapter 
of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews,  you  will  find  there  the 
glorious  names  of  the  men  and  women  who  blazed 
the  roads  of  God  by  faith.  There  was  Abraham, 
who  started  out  from  his  own  home  for  a  new  land 
because  he  believed  that  God  had  a  great  work  for 
him  to  do,  and  though  perhaps  his  neighbours 
laughed,  he  dared  keep  on  in  the  power  of  his  faith 
in  “  Him  who  is  invisible.”  There  was  Moses,  who 
left  his  place  in  the  King’s  palace  to  go  lead  his 
own  people  out  through  the  wilderness  to  freedom, 
because  he  had  faith  that  God  would  help  him  do 
the  things  which  cowards  thought  to  be  impossible. 
Because  they  had  faith,  they  blazed  great  roads  of 
courage  for  others ;  and  wherever  to-day  any  boy  or 
girl  has  faith  to  attempt  great  things  for  God,  that 
boy  or  girl  blazes  the  great  roads  too. 

Then,  second,  there  is  the  blaze  of  hope.  Some¬ 
times  we  lose  the  first  glow  of  faith.  We  start 
on  something  that  is  fine,  and  it  looks  as  though 
we  might  fail.  We  begin  to  mark  the  path  through 
the  dark  woods  of  difficulty,  and  the  shadows  are 
so  deep,  and  the  way  so  long  that  faint-hearts  won¬ 
der  whether  they  can  ever  get  through.  But  then 
comes  the  bright  spirit  who  is  brave  enough  to  be 
forever  hopeful — the  boy  or  girl  who  whistles  when 
others  whine,  who  looks  ahead  when  others  look 
back ;  and  by  hope  the  way  is  blazed,  and  the  path 
leads  on. 


BLAZING  THE  TRAIL 


25 


Then,  finally,  there  is  love.  Nothing  is  so  help¬ 
ful  and  so  blessed  as  that.  Eor,  many  times  peo¬ 
ple  will  not  try  to  be  good,  and  become  sullen  and 
hard,  because  they  think  that  nobody  cares.  But 
then  comes  someone  who  shows  them  what  they 
ought  to  try  to  do,  and  makes  the  right  path  plain 
by  all  sweet  marks  of  sympathy  and  friendship. 
That  is  what  Jesus  did.  He  blazed  the  road  that 
leads  to  God  by  the  blazes  of  His  love ;  and  we  who 
remember  Jesus  must  try  to  make  that  way  of  good¬ 
ness  plain  by  the  marks  of  a  love  like  His. 


5 


THE  SINGING  BIRD 

ONCE  there  was  a  boy  who  had  a  canary 
which  he  loved  and  was  very  proud  of. 
Of  all  the  birds  you  ever  saw  it  seemed 
the  most  merry-hearted.  It  would  flit  about  in  its 
cage  and  sing  and  sing.  All  day  long  it  would  be 
pouring  out  music  until  the  house  was  filled  with 
it. 

But  there  was  one  thing  that  troubled  the  boy. 
His  bird,  which  sang  so  beautifully,  had  only  a 
little  wooden  cage.  He  thought  it  ought  to  have  a 
better  cage,  and  he  kept  persuading  his  father 
please  to  give  him  some  money  to  buy  one.  So  at 
last  he  did  get  another  cage — -a  great  gilded  one, 
with  perches  and  swings,  and  all  sorts  of  orna¬ 
ments,  and  he  took  his  singing  bird  out  of  the  little 
cage  and  put  him  in  the  big  one,  and  was  very 
triumphant. 

But  then  what  do  you  suppose  happened?  The 

singing  bird  would  not  sing.  It  looked  bewildered 

and  frightened.  It  flew  about  in  the  great  cage, 

and  fluttered  up  against  the  wires  in  one  corner, 

and  then  sat  on  the  perch,  and  ruffled  its  feathers, 

and  drooped  its  head.  It  could  not  understand 

26 


THE  SINGING  BIRD 


27 


being  in  the  big  cage.  It  felt  so  awkward  and 
strange  that  it  would  not  sing.  So  presently 
the  boy  began  to  think  to  himself  that,  a  great, 
gilded  cage  with  an  unhappy  bird  in  it  was,  after 
all,  not  nearly  as  nice  as  the  little  cage  and  the 
singing  bird.  So  he  put  the  bird  back  into  the  little 
cage  again,  and  the  bird  was  happy,  and'  out  came 
his  pouring  song. 

Always  it  is  a  good  thing  for  us  to  remember  that 
the  singing  bird  is  very  much  more  important  than 
the  cage.  It  is  better  to  have  music  in  a  little  place 
than  silence  in  a  big  one.  It  is  better  to  have  a 
merry  heart  with  simple  things  around  one,  than 
to  have  a  cold  heart  in  the  midst  of  riches. 

So  many  boys  and  girls,  and  grown  up  people 
also,  are  apt  to  forget  that.  They  imagine  that  if 
they  can  get  the  elaborate  and  showy  things  they 
want,  they  will  be  happy.  If  they  can  surround 
themselves  with  fine  clothes  and  expensive  toys  and 
pleasures  of  all  kinds,  then  they  suppose  that  their 
whole  life  will  be  as  full  of  gladness  as  a  bird’s 
throat  is  full  of  song.  But  it  may  not  work  out 
that  way;  and  all  the  fine  things  in  the  world  are 
useless  unless,  first  of  all,  we  make  sure  that  the 
little  bird  within  our  hearts  will  sing. 

When  we  read  our  Bibles,  and  all  other  great 
books  about  life,  we  see  how  often  it  is  true  that 
the  heart  may  be  singing  in  the  simplest  places,  and 
that  it  is  not  what  we  have,  but  what  we  are,  that 
makes  the  difference.  There  was  David,  who  was 


28 


THE  SINGING  BIRD 


only  a  shepherd  lad,  keeping  his  father’s  sheep  in 
the  hills  of  Bethlehem.  He  was  all  athrill  with 
courage  and  gladness,  and  Saul,  the  King,  who 
lived  amidst  the  utmost  splendours  that  the  King¬ 
dom  could  give  him,  was  gloomy  and  miserable. 
Jesus  Himself  often  had  no  roof  over  His  head  ex¬ 
cept  God’s  skies,  and  owned  no  houses  nor  wealth 
of  any  kind.  He  was  always  filled  with  splendid 
joyousness,  and  Herod,  in  his  palace,  was  a  man  of 
gloom.  What  Jesus  told  His  disciples  is  forever 
true.  He  said,  “  A  man’s  life  consisteth  not  in  the 
abundance  of  the  things  which  he  possesseth.”  That 
means,  in  other  words,  that  it  is  not  what  we  have 
that  makes  our  life  worth  living.  Much  or  little 
makes  no  difference  in  the  end.  The  thing  that 
counted  was  not  the  cage  but  the  singing  bird,  and 
the  thing  that  counts  with  us  is  not  possessions,  but 
the  singing  heart.  Only  God  can  give  us  the  heart 
that  always  sings.  The  more  we  think  of  Him, 
the  more  we  shall  know  that  life  is  so  sweet  and  full 
of  blessings  that  every  thought  of  it  is  like  a 
song. 


0 


MANY  .VOICES 

THE  other  day  I  walked  into  a  great  hotel 
which  has  a  very  beautiful  palm-garden. 
In  the  center  of  it  is  a  statue,  and  around 
it,  marble  walks  between  which  are  little  tinkling 
fountains,  and  palms,  and  flowers,  and  over  it  all 
a  glass  roof  through  which  the  sun  was  streaming. 
But  it  was  not  any  of  these  things  that  caught  my 
attention.  What  I  noted  especially  was  that  all 
the  place  was  full  of  the  sound  of  singing.  The 
air  thrilled  with  it,  and  it  echoed  everywhere. 
Then  when  I  came  to  look  to  see  where  all  the 
music  came  from,  I  saw  that  in  big  wicker  cages 
in  the  corners  of  the  palm-garden  were  canaries. 
There  was  not  just  one  canary,  but  four — one  in 
each  corner.  One  of  them  would  lift  his  head  on 
his  perch,  and  ruffle  his  throat,  and  out  would  come 
the  rippling  music.  Then  when  he  sang  another 
would  begin  to  sing.  And  so,  one  after  another, 
they  took  it  up  until  there  was  continual  music.  It 
was  not  only  that  there  were  four  birds  instead  of 
one,  and  so  four  times  as  much  singing  as  one  could 
have  made,  but  every  bird  seemed  to  sing  about 

four  times  as  much  as  he  would  if  he  had  been  all 

29 


30 


MANY  VOICES 


alone,  and  so  there  was  sixteen  times  as  much 
music  as  one  bird  alone  would  have  made.  For 
each  one  started  the  other,  and  so  the  music  kept 
multiplying  until  it  seemed  as  though  the  whole 
place  were  full  of  birds. 

Then  I  thought  how  nice  it  is  to  know  that  the 
same  thing  can  be  true  of  hoys  and  girls,  and  of 
people  generally.  If  one  sings,  another  is  apt  to 
begin  singing  too.  It  is  that  way  in  church  with 
the  singing  of  the  hymns.  I  know  of  some  churches 
where  nobody  seems  to  sing,  and  if  a  stranger  comes 
in  and  picks  up  a  hymn  hook  and  begins  to  join  in 
with  the  choir,  as  everyone  ought  to  do,  he  sud¬ 
denly  finds  his  voice  sounding  queer  and  solitary 
down  in  his  comer  of  the  church,  because  nobody 
else  is  singing,  and  everyone  looks  around  in  a  sur¬ 
prised  way  to  see  whose  voice  that  is.  So  perhaps 
he  is  embarrassed,  and  he  stops  singing  too.  But 
then  I  know  of  other  churches  where  all  the  people 
try  to  sing  because  their  hearts  are  glad  with  the 
thought  of  the  Lord,  and  they  want  to  pour  that 
gladness  out  just  as  naturally  as  the  rippling  music 
of  the  birds.  They  may  not  all  sing  very  well,  but 
when  everybody  sings,  each  particular  one,  good  or 
bad,  does  not  make  so  much  difference.  Every  one 
encourages  everybody  else  until  the  whole  church  is 
filled  not  only  with  the  music  of  voices,  but  with 
the  better  music  of  glad  souls  which  are  really  wor¬ 
shipping  God. 

So,  also,  there  is  a  constant  way  in  which  we 


MANY  VOICES 


31 


can  be  making  music,  even  when  our  voices  are 
still.  St  Paul  in  one  of  his  letters  wrote  to  the 
Christians  whom  he  knew  that  they  ought  to  be 
“  singing  and  making  melody  in  your  heart  to  the 
Lord.”  Every  time  any  one  of  us  cultivates  the 
habit  of  thinking  beautiful  thoughts  about  Christ 
and  His  love  for  us,  every  time  we  remember  all 
the  blessings  which  He  has  given  us — home,  and 
friends,  and  laughter  and  love,  and  the  chance  to 
work  and  serve— it  puts  a  gladness  into  our  hearts 
that  makes  them  go  singing  on  their  way.  One 
single  cheerful  heart  will  make  other  hearts  cheer¬ 
ful.  A  single  one  that  is  bright  with  the  thoughts 
of  God  will  make  others  bright.  So  it  will  be  like 
the  sunny  garden  I  told  you  of  just  now  where  all 
the  birds  were  singing.  Each  heart  that  sings 
makes  others  sing,  and  their  singing  gives  us  back 
new  gladness  to  make  us  want  to  sing  again. 


7 


COURAGE  IJST  THE  COLD 

OUE  day  I  preached  to  the  hoys  and  girls 
a  sermon  about  two  flowers,  one  of  which 
was  in  a  south  window,  where  the  warm 
sun  shone,  and  the  other  in  a  north  window  where 
the  sun  never  shone  at  all.  The  flower  in  the  sun 
was  growing  and  blossoming,  but  the  flower  which 
had  stood  in  the  window  to  the  north  was  pinched 
and  shrivelled,  and  scarcely  had  any  life  left  in  it. 
It  needed  the  cheerful  warmth  and  brightness 
which  it  could  not  get,  and  which  the  more  for¬ 
tunate  flower  in  the  sunny  window  had  always  had. 
And  then  I  told  the  boys  and  girls  how  a  great 
many  people  are  like  the  flowers — some  of  them  in 
bright  places  of  happy  opportunity,  and  some  where 
they  see  only  the  gray  skies  of  unhappiness  and 
feel  the  cold  wind  of  unkindness  blowing  round 
them.  And  I  reminded  the  hoys  and  girls  of  how 
fine  it  would  he  if  we  could  all  help  to  take  the  lives 
which  thus  are  like  the  flowers  in  the  north  win¬ 
dows  and  bring  them  into  the  midst  of  our  encour¬ 
agement  and  friendship,  so  that  they  would  be  like 
the  flowers  which  had  been  given  a  place  in  the  sun. 

I  called  that  sermon  “  Sunny  Windows,”  and  after 

32 


COURAGE  IN  THE  COLD 


33 


a  while  I  put  it  in  a  book,  and  the  whole  book  has 
the  name  of  that  sermon,  for  I  thought  it  was  a 
good  message  for  all  of  us  to  think  of. 

But  here,  to-day,  I  want  to  show  you  a  flower 
which  preaches  another  message,  and  a  very  cour¬ 
ageous  one.  Most  flowers,  just  as  I  said  that  day 
before,  will  wither  and  almost  die  if  they  are  put 
in  a  window  where  there  is  no  sun,  but  here  is  a 
flower— this  wax  begonia — of  a  different  kind.  It 
will  grow  and  blossom  even  if  you  do  keep  it  in  a 
window  to  the  north.  If  it  lacks  the  chance  which 
the  flower  in  the  sunny  window  had,  it  does  not 
complain  nor  despair,  nor  give  up  growing,  but 
somehow  manages  to  thrive  and  blossom  just  as  well 
as  the  flower  in  the  happier  place. 

I  think  we  all  need  to  learn  the  lesson  of  this 
flower,  just  as  much  as  we  needed  to  learn  the 
lesson  which  I  told  of  in  u  Sunny  Windows.”  We 
were  thinking  then  of  how  we  ought  to  help  one  an¬ 
other  and  give  boys  and  girls  whose  lot  had  been 
cast  in  gloomy  surroundings  a  better  chance  for 
happiness  and  life.  We  might  have  taken  for  our 
text  those  words  of  St.  Paul’s  when  he  said,  “  Bear 
ye  one  another’s  burdens,”  which  is  to  say  that  we 
ought  to  help  each  other  in  the  things  which  the 
other  one  finds  very  hard.  But  there  is  another 
text  which  we  might  take  for  our  sermon  to-day, 
and  that  is  that  other  message  of  St.  Paul’s  when 
he  said,  “  But  each  man  shall  bear  his  own  bur¬ 
den.  That  means  that  we  cannot  be  always  wait- 


34 


COURAGE  IN  THE  COLD 


ing  for  someone  else  to  help  us  out  of  our  difficul¬ 
ties.  We  must  be  very  brave  and  courageous  to 
make  the  best  of  ourselves  in  spite  of  our  diffi¬ 
culties,  if  these  cannot  be  taken  away.  Here  is  the 
flower  which  is  put  in  the  north  window  and  no¬ 
body  comes  to  change  it  into  the  sun,  so  it  just  sets 
itself  to  make  the  best  of  the  lack  of  sun,  and  tries 
hard  to  bloom  as  though  it  had  it.  And  here  are 
hoys  and  girls  who  may  be  in  circumstances  which 
seem  very  discouraging  to  them.  They  have  not 
the  friends  they  wish  they  had.  They  are  poor  in¬ 
stead  of  rich,  and  have  to  work  hard  instead  of 
having  much  time  for  pleasure,  and  perhaps  they 
do  not  even  have  the  chance  to  study  and  learn  like 
other  more  fortunate  hoys  and  girls,  and  they  go 
to  work  when  others  go  off  to  college.  But,  never¬ 
theless,  if  they  are  courageous,  they  can  do  just 
what  this  flower  which  I  have  here  to-day  has  done. 
They  can  bloom  in  spite  of  the  north  window. 
They  can  grow  up  into  men  and  women,  proud  and 
strong  and  self-reliant,  because  there  is  something 
within  their  hearts  that  makes  them  determined  to 
grow  and  blossom  whether  the  sun  shines  or  not. 


8 


THE  LISTENING  TIME 

ONE  of  the  most  important  things  about  the 
great  vessels  which  go  hack  and  forth 
across  the  seas,  and  carry  thousands  of 
passengers  from  one  side  of  the  world  to  the  other, 
is  the  wireless  telegraph.  Before  the  wireless  tele¬ 
graph  was  invented  there  was  no  way  by  which  one 
ship  at  sea  could  send  a  message  to  another  if  it 
should  be  in  trouble.  A  ship  might  collide  with  an 
iceberg,  as  the  great  Titanic  did.  It  might  break 
part  of  its  machinery,  so  that  it  drifted  helpless  in 
the  sea.  Or  a  fire  might  break  out,  and  threaten 
to  destroy  the  ship  entirely.  Yet  there  was  no 
way  of  calling  for  help  unless  another  ship  by 
chance  should  sail  that  way  and  come  in  sight  of 
the  signals  of  distress.  But  now  the  wireless  tele¬ 
graph  has  been  invented,  and  it  is  carried  on  every 
ship.  Between  the  masts,  far  up  above  the  decks, 
you  will  see  the  long,  fine  network  of  wires  from 
which  the  electric  messages  can  be  sent  out,  and 
by  which  messages  from  other  ships  can  be  caught 
from  the  air.  So  now  if  a  ship  is  in  trouble,  it 

can  communicate  with  others,  and  from  far  away 

35 


36 


THE  LISTENING  TIME 


other  ships  which  ordinarily  would  never  have 
come  within  sight  of  it,  can  hasten  up  over  the 
horizon  to  its  aid. 

The  other  day  I  heard  something  about  the  way 
the  wireless  telegraph  is  used  on  board  the  ships 
which  it  is  good  for  all  of  us  to  know.  Out  of 
every  quarter  of  an  hour,  for  thirteen  minutes  the 
operator  may  be  sending  messages  out,  but  for  at 
least  two  minutes  out  of  each  fifteen  he  will  stop 
and  listen, — to  discover  what  messages  which  per¬ 
haps  he  ought  to  hear  may  be  quivering  through 
the  air.  Perhaps  there  may  be  some  ship  which  is 
calling  him,  some  ship  which  is  in  danger  and  is 
crying  out  for  aid.  If  his  own  wireless  were  talk¬ 
ing  all  the  time  he  could  not  hear.  The  other  ship 
might  be  trying  to  catch  his  attention,  but  his  wire¬ 
less  would  be  so  concerned  about  its  own  business 
that  it  would  not  know.  So  for  those  two  minutes 
the  wireless  keeps  still  so  that  if  any  messages  are 
coming  through  the  air  it  may  be  sure  to  know  it. 

But  is  it  not  a  fact  that  a  great  many  people  are 
like  a  wireless  which  talks  all  the  time?  They  are 
so  busy  with  their  own  notions  of  what  they  want 
to  say  that  they  fill  the  air  with  clamour.  There 
are  boys  and  girls  at  table  who  have  no  politeness 
in  keeping  still  during  other  people’s  conversation, 
but  they  must  be  chattering  every  minute  about 
what  they  have  in  mind.  And  there  are  those  who 
never  stop  to  find  out  what  others  may  want  to  do. 
Instead  of  that  they  are  shouting  out  what  game 


THE  LISTENING  TIME 


37 


it  is  they  want  to  play,  and  what  they  want  some¬ 
body  else  to  do  to  amuse  them,  and  as  for  stopping 
to  listen  to  know  what  somebody  else  might  prefer, 
that  never  seems  to  occur  to  them  at  all ! 

Suppose  we  all  should  follow  the  rule  of  the 
wireless.  Suppose  that  every  little  while  we  should 
deliberately  check  ourselves  and  say,  iC  I  must  stop 
making  such  a  clatter  now  about  the  things  I  like 
and  want.  What  sort  of  messages  are  there  that 
are  pouring  in  to  me  from  the  big  world,  if  only 
I  should  listen?  Who  is  there  that  is  tired  and 
needs  me  to  run  an  errand?  Who  is  there  that  is 
sick,  or  in  distress,  whom  I  can  be  good  to  ?  Who 
is  there  in  trouble  whom  I  can  help  ?  ”  How  much 
finer  and  happier,  too,  this  would  he  than  filling 
the  air  with  our  desires ! 

We  can  take  the  same  idea  also  into  our  pray¬ 
ers.  The  notion  of  most  people  about  prayer  is 
that  they  must  ask  God  for  everything  they  can 
think  of  that  they  want,  and  then  say,  “  Amen,” 
and  they  have  finished.  But  that  is  only  a  part  of 
prayer.  An  even  better  part  is  keeping  still  and 
listening  to  what  God  has  to  say  to  us.  If  we  try 
doing  that  on  our  knees,  it  will  be  easier  to  do  it 
in  all  other  times  when  we  are  going  about  our 
work  and  play.  We  can  learn  the  habit  of  listen¬ 
ing  for  the  Voice  of  God — that  Voice  which  speaks 
to  our  conscience  in  the  quiet  place,  and  speaks  to 
us  also  from  all  the  crowding  needs  of  other  people 
whom  we  can  help  in  God’s  Name.  u  Be  still  and 


38 


THE  LISTENING  TIME 


know  that  I  am  God,”  is  a  good  verse  from  the 
Bible  for  us  to  remember.  And  a  good  answer, 
which  comes  from  the  Bible  also,  is  this:  “I* will 
hear  what  God,  the  Lord,  will  speak.” 


9 


HOW  TO  MAKE  THE  GOOD  THINGS  GROW 


ONE  day  I  went  to  a  fair,  and  there  among 
a  good  many  other  exhibits  was  a  little 
plate  which  had  ribbons  going  out  from 
it,  like  the  spokes  of  a  wheel,  to  other  plates.  On 
the  little  plate  in  the  center  there  was  something 
which  looked  like  fine  brown  powder,  and  on  the 
other  plates  were  various  things  which  you  could 
recognize  at  once.  On  one  plate  was  a  pile  of 
smooth  Irish  potatoes,  on  another  a  little  heap  of 
golden  grains  of  wheat,  on  another  some  fluffy 
white  cotton,  and  on  another,  corn.  Then  when  I 
looked  back  to  see  what  was  on  the  first  plate,  I 
saw  it  was  some  fertilizer. 

Not  all  boys  and  girls  know  what  fertilizer  is, 
though  most  of  those  who  live  in  the  country  do. 
Fertilizer  is  something  which  the  farmer  puts  on 
his  fields  to  make  them  fertile, — that  is,  to  make 
them  rich  so  that  they  will  grow  bigger  crops,  and 
better.  Sometimes  fertilizer  is  made  of  lime ; 
sometimes  it  is  made  of  bone  dust;  sometimes  of 
other  things.  But  the  purpose  of  it  all  is  the 
same,— to  make  the  land  grow  finer  crops  than  it 
would  have  grown  without  it.  The  little  pile  of 
fertilizer  on  the  plate  which  I  am  telling  you  about 
weighed  only  a  pound  and  cost  only  two  and  a  half 

cents,  but  it  would  make  six  pounds  of  potatoes 

39 


40  HOW  TO  MAKE  GOOD  THINGS  GROW 


grow,  and  three  pounds  of  wheat,  or  com  or  to¬ 
bacco  which  were  worth  much  more  than  the  farmer 
would  have  paid  for  the  fertilizer.  So  whatever 
the  farmer  spends  in  fertilizer  for  his  fields  is  more 
than  worth  the  cost,  for  he  gets  it  all  back,  and 
more,  when  he  comes  to  count  up  his  crop  and 
sell  it. 

If  a  farmer  were  stupid,  though,  he  would  not 
remember  that.  In  the  springtime  when  he  sows 
his  seed  in  the  ground  he  might  say,  u  Why  should 
I  spend  my  money  for  fertilizer?  The  fertilizer 
does  not  grow  up  into  anything  itself.  It  has  no 
seed  nor  leaves  nor  fruit  of  its  own.  It  disappears 
into  the  ground,  and  after  a  while  I  cannot  even 
see  that  it  is  there.  What  is  the  use  of  my  spend¬ 
ing  money  on  it?  If  I  put  seed  into  the  ground 
that  ought  to  be  enough.  The  land  must  take  care 
of  itself  and  make  my  seed  grow.”  But  when  the 
autumn  comes  and  the  crops  are  gathered  he  will 
not  have  nearly  as  much  as  he  might  have  had,  and 
his  wiser  neighbour  who  has  made  his  land  rich  will 
have  much  more. 

There  are  many  people  who  need  to  learn  the 
same  sort  of  lesson  that  the  farmers  have  to  learn. 
You  remember  how  Jesus  told  one  of  His  lovely 
stories,  which  we  call  parables,  to  make  us  remem¬ 
ber  that  the  hearts  of  people  are  like  a  field.  God’s 
words  are  like  the  seeds  which  are  sown  there,  and 
whether  or  not  those  seeds  spring  up  and  grow  and 
bring  forth  the  fruit  of  good  living  depends  upon 


HOW  TO  MAKE  GOOD  THINGS  GROW  41 

what  sort  of  soil  there  is  in  the  field  of  our  hearts. 
Some  hoys  and  girls, — and  men  and  women,  too, 
for  that  matter, — imagine  that  their  hearts  will 
somehow  grow  the  fruit  of  good  living  without  ever 
being  fertilized.  They  think  they  can  be  good  just 
by  themselves.  They  do  not  pray.  They  grow 
careless  about  coming  to  church.  They  do  not  try 
to  enrich  their  hearts  with  the  thought  of  God. 
Then,  after  a  while,  their  hearts  become  like  some 
of  the  farms  which  we  can  find  here  and  there 
farms  of  what  men  call  the  worn-out  lands.  They 
have  grown  their  crops  in  other  years,  but  the  land 
has  never  been  enriched  again,  and  it  has  lost  all 
its  fertility  and  will  not  grow  good  crops  any  more. 
So  the  hearts  of  people  can  become  like  worn-out 
lands,  too,  without  the  gladness  and  strength  which 
make  the  rich  harvest  of  character  and  good  deeds. 
What  we  need  is  to  keep  our  hearts  fertile  by 
bringing  to  them  the  things  that  make  them  rich. 
We  may  not  see  at  first  just  what  good  prayer  does, 
or  just  what  good  there  is  in  coming  to  church,  or 
in  trying  every  day  to  think  of  God  and  of  the  will 
of  Jesus.  We  cannot  see  it  at  first  any  more  than 
the  farmer  sees  what  good  the  fertilizer  does  when 
he  first  works  it  into  the  fields  in  the  spring.  But, 
very  quietly,  all  our  life,  like  the  fields,  will  be 
becoming  more  capable  of  bringing  forth  good  and 
beautiful  things,  until  one  day  we  may  be  aston¬ 
ished  at  the  harvest  of  character  which  the  silent 
influences  have  made  to  grow. 


10 


BLOSSOMS  WHICH  MUST  WITHER 


HERE  in  my  hand  is  one  of  the  loveliest 
gifts  of  the  springtime.  It  is  a  spray  of 
apple  blossoms,  and  the  very  sight  of  it 
makes  us  remember  how  very  lovely  the  whole 
world  is  when  the  spring  comes  back  after  the  long, 
gray  winter.  Out  in  the  meadows  the  grass  is 
growing  green,  and  the  flowers  are  coming  up  in 
all  the  gardens.  The  birds  are  coming  back  again, 
and  we  can  hear  their  music  everywhere  in  the 
hedge-rows,  and  in  the  trees;  and  in  the  orchards 
the  boughs  of  the  fruit  trees  have  clothed  them¬ 
selves  with  the  blossoms  that  flaunt  in  every  breeze, 
— the  pink  of  the  peaches,  and  the  white  blossoms 
of  the  pears  and  the  cherries,  and  now  the  sweetest 
and  most  delicate  of  all,  the  white  and  pink  of  the 
apple. 

Ho  wonder  when  anyone  goes  by  an  orchard  he 

wants  to  break  off  some  of  the  blossoms  and  take 

them  home  and  put  them  in  vases  here  and  there, 

and  make  the  rooms  of  the  house  look  beautiful 

with  them.  And  so  they  do  look  beautiful  there, 

as  beautiful  as  they  did  when  they  were  growing  on 

the  trees — for  awhile.  But  before  long  the  blos- 

42 


BLOSSOMS  WHICH  MUST  WITHER  43 

soms  will  commence  to  wither  and  drop,  and  then 
there  is  no  use  in  keeping  the  branch  any  more,  for 
when  the  blossoms  have  withered,  and  fallen  from 
the  broken  branch,  that  is  the  end  of  it.  Nothing 
more  will  happen.  The  branch  is  dead,  and  can 
only  be  thrown  away. 

But  with  the  blossoms  that  remain  on  the  tree 
there  is  a  very  different  story  to  tell.  When  the 
blossom  falls,  and  the  little  petals  are  scattered 
here  and  there  by  the  wind,  something  else  is  left. 
At  the  heart  of  the  blossom  is  the  tiny  little  begin¬ 
ning  of  the  fruit,  and  as  the  days  go  on  that  tiny 
thing,  no  larger  than  a  bead  at  first,  will  grow  and 
grow  and  be  fed  by  the  sap  that  flows  to  it  from 
the  trunk  of  the  tree  through  the  branch  and  the 
twig,  until  presently  it  will  be  the  big,  ripe  apple. 
The  blossoms  which  have  been  broken  off  could  have 
grown  into  apples,  too,  but  only  if  they  had  been 
left  on  the  tree. 

There  are  some  boys  and  girls  who  are  slow  to 
learn  about  themselves  the  truth  which  we  can  see 
so  plainly  in  regard  to  the  fruit  trees.  They  look 
at  themselves,  and  everything  seems  to  be  happy 
and  promising,  and  they  imagine  that  they  can  go 
on  growing  all  by  themselves.  They  have  been  born 
into  a  Christian  home,  and  taken  to  Sunday  School 
when  they  were  very  little;  and  at  home,  and  in 
Sunday  School  and  at  Church  they  have  been  learn¬ 
ing  about  God  and  the  Lord  J esus,  and  the  beauti¬ 
ful  lessons  of  the  Christian  life.  The  influence  of 


44  BLOSSOMS  WHICH  MUST  WITHER 


good  people  and  of  lovely  places  has  flowed  into 
them  so  silently  that  they  hardly  know  what  has 
been  happening.  The  blossoms  of  Christian  grace 
are  upon  them.  They  know  how  they  ought  to  be¬ 
have,  and  how  they  ought  to  live.  Then,  perhaps, 
they  begin  to  think  they  know  it  all,  and  do  not 
need  help  any  more.  They  do  not  want  to  listen 
to  their  fathers  and  mothers.  Perhaps  they  get  im¬ 
patient  at  Sunday  School  and  want  to  stop.  They 
forget  that  the  blossoms  are  not  fruit,  and  that  the 
beginnings  of  lives  which  are  gracious  and  good 
will  never  ripen  if  they  are  broken  off  from  the  life 
that  feeds  them. 

So  there  are  men  and  women  also  who  are  just 
as  unwise  as  some  boys  and  girls.  They  used  to  say 
their  prayers  always,  but  now  they  have  grown  care¬ 
less  and  have  stopped.  They  used  to  read  their  Bible, 
but  they  have  grown  forgetful.  They  used  to  come 
to  church,  but  now  they  are  indifferent  and  lazy,  and 
do  not  come.  When  they  make  that  mistake,  ex¬ 
actly  the  same  thing  happens  which  happens  when 
the  bough  of  fruit  blossoms  is  broken  off  from  the 
tree.  The  fruit  of  all  the  fine  Christian  character 
which  they  ought  to  have  developed  never  ripens. 
People  who  look  at  them  are  disappointed.  They 
say,  “  I  thought  that  man,  and  that  woman,  would 
amount  to  so  much  more  than  they  do.  They  could 
have  been  so  helpful  and  useful  if  they  had  wanted 
to.  They  used  to  be  interested  in  loving  and  un¬ 
selfish  things,  and  now  they  cannot  be  depended 


BLOSSOMS  WHIGH  MUST  WITHER  45 

upon.”  Somehow  they  have  never  come  np  to  the 
expectations  of  others.  They  are  like  the  fruit  tree 
which  Jesus  found  one  day  when  He  came  to  it  look¬ 
ing  for  fruit,  and  found  nothing  but  leaves. 

There  is  just  one  way  for  boys  and  girls  who 
have  in  them  the  blossoms  of  Christian  knowledge 
and  all  sweet  Christian  possibilities  to  grow  the 
fruit  of  the  full,  fine  lives  that  ought  to  be.  They 
must  keep  as  close  as  they  can  to  the  life  of  Jesus 
as  it  flows  into  them  through  His  Church,  and 
through  all  the  living  influences  that  bring  Him  to 
us.  If  we  do  not  abide  in  Him,  He  said,  we  are 
cast  forth  as  broken  branches,  and  withered.  But 
if  we  do  keep  joined  to  Him,  as  the  branch  is  joined 
to  the  tree,  we  shall  bring  forth  much  fruit. 


11 


DANGEBS  WE  DO  NOT  SEE 


THE  other  day  we  were  thinking  about  the 
branch  cut  off  from  the  fruit  tree.  It 
looked  very  beautiful,  and  for  a  time  it 
would  seem  very  sweet  and  fresh  if  you  put  it  in 
a  vase  of  water  in  a  room.  But  then  we  remem¬ 
bered  that,  after  all,  that  bough  could  never  bear 
fruit.  Because  it  was  broken  from  the  tree,  no  sap 
could  flow  through  it  any  more,  and  presently  the 
blossoms  would  wither,  and  the  fruit  would  never 
come. 

If  blossoms  are  to  be  not  blossoms  only,  but 
peaches  and  pears  and  apples,  and  all  the  other 
fine,  ripe  things  which  fruit  trees  are  meant  to  pro¬ 
duce,  they  must  stay  on  the  tree.  And  people,  also, 
if  they  are  not  to  be  only  idle  blossoms,  and  empty 
promises  of  goodness  which  never  ripen  into  any¬ 
thing  real,  must  keep  themselves  close  to  the  life- 
giving  powers  of  God.  They  must  not  cut  them¬ 
selves  away  by  carelessness  in  worship  and  prayer, 
and  think  that  they  can  grow  all  by  themselves 
without  God’s  help.  They  must  keep  their  lives  a 
part  of  His  life,  or  they  will  surely  wither. 

But  to-day  I  want  to  go  on  and  tell  you  about 

46 


DANGERS  WE  DO  NOT  SEE 


47 


something  which  may  happen  to  the  fruit,  even 
though  the  boughs  are  still  a  part  of  the  tree.  Even 
though  it  he  not  broken  off,  the  branch  may  fail  to 
bear  fruit.  So  it  is  with  people,  too.  Even  though 
we  may  not  deliberately  cut  ourselves  off  from  good 
things,  we  may  still  fail  to  make  the  best  of  our¬ 
selves  unless  we  watch  out  for  dangers  which  the 
fruit  tree  can  teach  us  of. 

In  the  first  place,  the  men  who  know  about 
orchards  know  that  they  must  be  careful  of  the 
roots  of  their  trees.  Very  often  the  little  field 
mice,  burrowing  in  the  ground,  will  gnaw  the  roots 
and  kill  them.  Or  rabbits  will  eat  the  new  bark 
until  there  is  a  bare  ring  all  around  the  trunk  of 
the  tree,  and  the  sap  cannot  flow,  and  the  tree  be¬ 
gins  to  die.  The  man  who  wants  his  fruit  trees 
to  grow  and  thrive,  must  protect  them  against  the 
rabbits  and  the  mice,  or  else  before  he  knows  it,  his 
tree  is  spoiled. 

Then  there  is  another  thing  which  must  be 
watched  out  for  even  at  the  cost  of  a  great  deal  of 
trouble.  On  the  branches  of  fruit  trees  there  comes 
a  little  enemy  called  the  scale.  It  is  a  tiny  growth 
which  spreads  and  spreads  and  spoils  the  fruit  so 
that  it  is  not  sound  and  healthy.  Every  spring  in 
regions  where  the  great  orchards  are,  we  may  see 
men  going  out  with  wagons  on  which  are  huge 
tanks  and  pumps  with  a  long  hose.  Out  of  the 
tanks  they  pump  a  liquid  stuff  which  breaks  into 
a  fine  spray,  and  it  sifts  all  through  the  branches 


48 


DANGERS  WE  DO  NOT  SEE 


and  twigs  and  covers  them  with  a  mist  that  dries 
and  leaves  the  trees  white,  or  sometimes  the  strang¬ 
est  light  blue,  from  the  ground-up  powder  which 
was  in  the  spray.  That  is  to  kill  the  scale,  and  to 
make  sure  that  the  fruit  will  ripen  sound  and 
sweet.  It  costs  a  great  deal  of  money  and  means  a 
good  deal  of  trouble  to  spray  all  the  trees  in  an 
orchard,  but  it  is  worth  it  if  a  crop  of  fruit 
is  saved. 

But  what  has  all  that  to  do  with  us  ?  a  boy  or 
girl  may  say.  Well,  it  has  a  good  deal  to  do  with 
every  one  of  us.  When  we  stop  and  think,  we  begin 
to  see. 

There  are  boys  and  girls,  in  the  first  place,  who 
do  not  take  care  of  their  roots.  Our  roots  are  the 
good  things  that  lie  back  of  us — the  help  that  comes 
to  us  from  our  fathers  and  mothers,  the  good  name 
we  bear,  the  fine  example  of  those  who  have  loved 
us  which  we  are  supposed  to  live  up  to.  We  may 
be  so  vain  about  those  roots  that  we  idly  imagine 
that  because  we  have  them,  everything  will  go  well 
with  us;  and  we  do  not  trouble  to  make  sure  that 
nothing  is  hurting  those  roots  and  keeping  their 
help  from  flowing  into  us.  When  I  went  to  college, 
I  knew  a  man  who  lived  in  the  same  room  which 
his  father  had  lived  in  before  him,  and  his  grand¬ 
father  before  that,  and  his  great-grandfather  had 
gone  to  that  college  and  had  graduated  exactly  one 
hundred  years  before  this  man  was  supposed  to 
graduate.  He  had  roots,  you  see,  down  through 


DANGERS  WE  DO  NOT  SEE 


49 


the  life  of  that  college  for  one  hundred  years. 
With  all  that  example  back  of  him,  it  looked  as 
though  he  certainly  must  do  well.  But,  instead  of 
that,  he  began  to  waste  his  time.  He  was  a  nice 
friendly  sort  of  fellow  who  looked  as  pleasant  as  a 
fruit  tree  in  bloom,  but  he  was  lazy.  And  all  the 
while  those  wasted  days  of  his,  while  he  was  loafing 
about  doing  nothing  but  having  a  pleasant  time, 
were  like  little  mice,  gnawing  at  the  roots  of  the 
tree.  When  the  time  came  for  his  class  to  gradu¬ 
ate,  and  all  the  others  went  up  for  their  diplomas, 
he  did  not  get  any.  He  had  failed.  It  did  not 
make  any  difference  then  how  many  roots  his  tree 
had  had.  The  little  gnawing  laziness  had  cut  the 
roots,  and  the  fruit  that  he  was  supposed  to  get  out 
of  his  college  years  had  withered. 

Just  as  surely  also  are  we  like  the  trees  which 
need  to  be  sprayed  to  kill  the  tiny  scale.  Some 
people,  looking  at  a  fruit  tree  with  the  scale  on  it, 
might  shrug  their  shoulders  and  say,  u  What  dif¬ 
ference  does  that  make  ?  I  am  not  going  to  take 
a  lot  of  trouble  spraying  my  trees  just  for  that. 
I  believe  the  fruit  will  grow  anyway.”  The 
fruit  does  grow  anyway  for  a  while.  But  after  a 
time  you  see  that  it  is  full  of  specks  and  blotches 
which  will  begin  to  rot  and  spoil.  So  in  the  hearts 
of  boys  and  girls  there  may  come  the  tiny  begin¬ 
nings  of  evil  which  look  at  first  no  bigger  than  the 
little  scale  on  the  fruit  tree  boughs.  There  is  the 
habit  of  telling  not  quite  the  truth.  There  is  the 


50 


DANGERS  WE  DO  NOT  SEE 


little  twisting  meanness  of  gossip  that  for  the  sake 
of  making  a  good  story  says  an  unkind  thing  about 
some  one  else.  There  is  the  selfish  habit  of  think¬ 
ing  first  of  what  is  pleasant  to  do  and  not  of  what 
is  helpful  and  brave  and  kind.  If  these  little  be¬ 
ginnings  are  left  alone  they  will  spread  and  spoil 
the  fruit  of  all  our  finest  living.  What  we  must 
do  is  to  cover  all  the  branches  of  our  lives  with  the 
wholesome  thought  of  Jesus.  It  can  sift  in  every¬ 
where,  like  the  spray  on  the  frut-tree  boughs. 
Wherever  it  touches,  it  brings  soundness  and  help, 
and  puts  an  end  to  the  destroying  things,  and 
makes  sure  that  the  fruit  of  all  good  living  will 
ripen  as  God  meant  it  to  do. 


12 


HOW  HOT  TO  PEAK  THE  FROST 


WHEH  Jesus  preached,  He  usually  did 
not  preach  from  a  book, — unless  it  was 
the  great,  open  book  of  God’s  wide  out- 
of-doors.  He  saw  a  man  walking  in  the  brown, 
ploughed  field,  casting  seed  into  the  furrows,  and 
He  preached  His  parable  of  how  the  sower,  sow¬ 
ing  seed,  reminds  us  of  the  word  of  God  which  falls 
like  seed  into  our  hearts,  and  our  hearts  must  be 
prepared,  like  the  good  ground,  to  receive  it.  He 
saw  the  lilies  in  the  fields,  growing  all  sweet  and 
unafraid,  and  He  taught  us  how  we,  too,  like  the 
lilies,  must  trust  the  good  providence  of  God.  He 
heard  the  birds  sing  in  the  hedge  rows,  and  He  said 
that  if  God  remembered  these,  how  much  more 
might  we  be  sure  that  He  remembers  His  human 
children.  All  the  world  was  full  of  sermons  for 
Him,  for  it  was  full  of  the  signs  of  the  meanings 
of  God.  And  so  it  is  good  for  us  that  often  we 
should  take  our  sermons,  not  from  the  printed 
book,  but  from  the  book  of  God’s  world  that  lies 
around  us. 

Once  again,  therefore,  our  text  shall  be  some* 

thing  that  is  happening  out-of-doors.  Twice  ab 

51 


52  HOW  NOT  TO  FEAR  THE  FROST 


ready  we  have  talked  about  the  fruit  trees,  but  for 
the  third  time  there  is  a  new  thing  to  think  about. 
One  spring  there  came  a  very  heavy  and  terrifying 
frost  in  a  region  where  great  orchards  of  apples 
grow.  It  was  late  in  April,  and  everyone  thought 
that  the  period  of  frost  had  passed.  Some  of  the 
trees  were  in  full  bloom,  and  on  some  of  them  the 
little  apples  had  begun  to  form.  And  then,  unex¬ 
pectedly,  the  frost  came,  heavy  and  white  and  cold. 
The  next  morning,  when  men  went  out,  it  seemed 
to  them  that  all  their  crop  was  ruined.  The  blooms 
were  shriveled  and  blighted.  It  looked  as  though 
all  the  fruit  were  dead. 

A  great  many  people  began  to  think  what  ter¬ 
ribly  hard  fortune  that  was  for  all  the  growers  of 
fruit.  What  could  they  do  against  such  bad  luck 
as  that?  What  difference  did  it  make  how  hard 
they  had  worked  if  the  frost  were  going  thus  to  kill 
all  the  fruit,  regardless  of  anything  that  they 
could  do  ? 

But  presently  it  appeared  that  notwithstanding 
the  frost,  it  did  make  a  tremendous  difference  what 
men  had  done  or  left  undone.  The  frost  did  not 
kill  all  the  fruit,  but  only  some  of  it.  The  trees 
which  it  damaged  most  were  the  trees  which  had 
not  been  taken  care  of — the  trees  on  which  there 
was  the  scale  that  I  told  you  of  last  time — the  trees 
that  had  not  been  guarded  and  sprayed  and  kept 
strong.  On  the  neglected  trees,  the  frost  killed 
nearly  everything;  but  on  the  trees  which  were  in 


HOW  NOT  TO  FEAR  THE  FROST  53 


best  condition  the  blossoms  were  strong  enough  to 
withstand  the  frost.  Some  of  them  were  killed,  but 
a  great  many  survived,  and  those  trees  would  bear 
a  crop,  regardless  of  the  frost.  So  it  was  not  a 
question  only  of  luck.  It  was  a  question  of  cour¬ 
age  and  patience  and  work  which  could  overcome 
what  seemed  bad  luck. 

That  is  a  good  lesson  for  everyone  to  learn. 
Sometimes  a  boy  at  school  finds  a  question  on  his 
examination  which  has  to  do  with  a  part  of  the 
book  that  he  forgot  to  study.  If  almost  any  other 
question  had  been  asked,  he  could  have  answered 
it,  but  this  one  he  just  cannot  answer,  and  so  he 
fails  because  of  what  he  thinks  is  his  hard  luck. 
Or  some  day  to  a  boy  or  girl,  or  to  an  older  person, 
the  temptation  comes  of  some  wrong-doing.  Most 
other  sorts  of  wrong  things  they  would  have  said 
“  no  ”  to  at  once,  but  this  particular  one  catches 
them  unawares,  and,  before  they  know  it  they  have 
done  something  they  will  be  ashamed  of.  Then 
they  say,  “  What  hard  luck  it  was  that  I  got  into 
that  tight  place !  ” 

It  is  always  easy  to  blame  our  failures  on  hard 
luck.  In  one  of  the  parables  which  Jesus  told, 
there  were  ten  virgins  who  were  to  meet  the  wed¬ 
ding  procession  of  the  bridegroom  in  the  evening. 
Five  of  them  had  their  lamps  filled  with  oil,  and 
five  of  them  had  forgotten  all  about  it,  or  thought 
about  it  after  it  was  too  late;  and  so  their  lamps 
were  empty.  Then  when  they  were  all  sleeping, 


54  HOW  NOT  TO  FEAR  THE  FROST 

and  nobody  expected  him,  tbe  bridegroom  came, 
and  tbe  five  foolish  virgins  could  not  go  in  with 
him  because  tbeir  lamps  were  out.  “  Wbat  bard 
luck  it  was,”  they  might  have  said,  “  that  be  came 
just  at  that  one  time  when  our  lamps  happened  to 
be  empty !  ”  But  it  was  not  bard  luck.  It  was 
because  they  bad  not  thought,  and  remembered,  and 
planned  before. 

There  is  a  way  always  to  overcome  the  things 
which  we  are  tempted  to  complain  about,  and  call 
hard  luck.  It  is  to  put  another  letter  before 
“  luck  ”  and  turn  it  into  “  pluck.”  J ust  as  men 
who  have  gone  steadily  on  working  upon  their 
trees,  keeping  them  in  the  best  condition  they  could, 
will  find  that  their  trees  overcome  the  frost,  so  if 
you  and  I  go  on  working  as  best  we  know  to  make 
our  spirits  clean  and  strong  and  true,  then,  in  spite 
of  difficulty,  they  will  ripen  into  the  harvest  of 
good  life  for  God. 


13 


“  I  CAME  HERE  TO  FIGHT  ” 

IH  France  one  day  an  American  general  was 
watching  some  soldiers  who  had  come  up  to 
take  their  places  in  a  regiment  which  needed 
new  troops  because  so  many  of  the  ones  it  used  to 
have  had  been  lost  in  battle.  He  went  up  and 
spoke  to  one  of  them,  a  clean-looking  lad  with  a 
boyish  face.  He  said,  “  Son,  where  did  you  come 
from  ?  ” 

The  boy  remembered  all  the  long  march  through 
the  queer  little  towns  of  France,  each  one  with  its 
stone  houses  and  its  crooked  streets,  so  much  like 
every  other  one,  and  his  face  was  puzzled. 

“  General,”  he  said,  “  I  don’t  know  where  we 
came  from.” 

The  general  thought  he  would  tease  him  a  little, 
so  he  said  to  him,  though  he  kept  his  face  looking 
serious,  “  Well,  where  are  you  going?  ” 

“  General,”  said  the  boy,  “  I  don’t  know  where 

we  are  going.” 

“  Well,”  said  the  general,  trying  to  look  aston¬ 
ished,  “  where  are  you  now  ?  ” 

The  boy  looked  round  at  the  little  village  with 

the  French  name  which  he  could  never  pronounce, 

55 


56 


“  I  CAME  HERE  TO  FIGHT  ” 


and  shook  his  head.  “  General/7  he  said,  “  I  don’t 
even  know  where  I  am  at.77 

“  Well/7  said  the  general,  “  what  did  you  come 
over  here  for  ? 77 

At  that  the  hoy  straightened  up  and  a  flash  came 
into  his  eyes.  “  General/7  he  said,  “  I  came  here 
to  fight ! 77 

The  general  threw  hack  his  head  and  laughed, 
delighted.  The  hoy  understood  the  one  thing  that 
counted.  He  knew  what  he  was  there  for,  and  all 
his  courage  and  strength  were  ready. 

The  war  which  took  these  boys  to  France,  by 
God’s  mercy  is  over,  but  is  it  not  well  for  boys  and 
girls  at  home  to  remember  the  war  which  is  never 
over?  We,  also,  are  here  to  fight — to  fight  all 
things  that  are  wrong  and  evil, — to  be,  as  the  great 
apostle  called  the  young  Timothy,  “good  soldiers 
of  Jesus  Christ.77 

In  a  book  which  all  young  people  ought  to  read, 
“  Tom  Brown  at  Rugby/7  which  is  a  story  of  a  boy 
at  school,  there  is  this  fine  description  of  what  hap¬ 
pened  when  Tom  Brown  went  up  to  the  chapel  at 
Rugby.  He  heard  the  great  Headmaster,  Thomas 
Arnold,  preach ;  and  then,  “  wearily,  and  little  by 
little,  but  surely  and  steadily  on  the  whole,  was 
brought  home  to  the  young  boy  for  the  first  time 
the  meaning  of  his  life,  that  it  was  no  fool’s  or 
sluggard’s  paradise  into  which  he  had  wandered  by 
chance,  but  a  battle-field,  ordained  from  of  old, 
where  there  are  no  spectators,  but  the  youngest 


57 


u  I  CAME  HERE  TO  FIGHT  ” 

must  take  his  side,  and  the  stakes  are  life  and 
death.” 

What  that  means  is  that  all  life  for  every  one  of 
ns  is  a  struggle  in  which  our  hearts  must  fight, 
where  we  cannot  stand  by  and  watch,  but  every¬ 
body  must  play  his  own  part  manfully:  and  the 
way  we  fight  our  battle  will  determine  whether  our 
souls  win  honour,  or  only  defeat  and  shame. 

WLen  things  are  hard,  and  temptations  crowd  U3 
close,  and  the  evils  which  we  know  we  ought  to 
fight  against  stand  up  before  us,  let  us  not  wish  to 
have  an  easier  time,  or  want  like  cowards  to  sur¬ 
render.  Let  us  say  like  the  boy  in  France,  “  I 
came  here  to  fight !  ” 


14 


BOYS  WHO  WOULD  HOT  BE  BEATEN 


IN  the  year  1914,  when  the  great  war  began  in 
Europe,  the  armies  of  Germany  started  on 
their  way  to  try  to  reach  the  city  of  Paris  and 
capture  it  before  the  Erench  armies  could  rally  to 
prevent  them.  Across  little  Belgium,  those  great 
German  armies  came.  They  brought  huge  cannon, 
such  as  had  never  been  seen  in  the  world  before, 
and  planted  them  before  the  Belgian  forts.  They 
blew  the  strong  walls  to  pieces,  and  stormed  the 
forts.  Little  by  little,  they  beat  the  Belgian  army 
back,  and,  like  a  great  tide  coming  in  from  an 
angry  sea,  they  swept  all  over  Belgium,  and  passed 
on  into  France.  Down  over  the  roads  of  France, 
that  army  poured — past  city  after  city,  which  they 
captured,  with  the  French  army  falling  back  before 
them.  At  last,  they  were  at  the  very  gates  of  Paris, 
so  that  the  people  on  the  Paris  streets  could  hear 
the  thunder  of  the  guns.  It  looked  as  though  Paris 
would  certainly  be  captured,  and  Paris  was  the 
heart  of  France. 

In  Paris  there  lived  a  little  boy.  He  was  very 
troubled  when  he  saw  the  French  soldiers  retreat¬ 
ing,  and  knew  that  the  Germans  were  coming  on; 

58 


BOYS  WHO  WOULD  NOT  BE  BEATEN  59 

he  wanted  very  much  to  do  something  for  France, 
his  country.  He  wished  that  he  were  a  man  and 
could  take  a  ride  and  go  out  to  battle,  too ;  but  he 
was  only  a  little  boy — and  what  could  a  little  boy 
do  to  help  ? 

Well,  he  did  something  all  his  own,  which  was 
a  wonderful  help,  and  you  could  never  guess  what 
it  was.  You  see  this  little  piece  of  paper  in  my 
hand  ?  It  was  with  a  piece  of  paper  no  bigger  than 
this  that  the  little  boy  did  his  part  to  save  France. 
“  A  piece  of  paper,”  you  say — “  What  could  a  piece 
of  paper  do  ?  ”  Yes,  a  piece  of  paper,  but  with 
something  written  on  it.  Up  in  the  tiny  room 
where  the  little  boy  lived  with  his  grandmother,  he 
cut  squares  of  paper  from  all  the  blank  sheets  he 
could  bnd,  and  on  each  square  he  wrote  these 
words :  “  France  cannot  be  beaten.”  Then  he  went 
out  into  the  street,  and  to  everybody  he  saw  he 
would  give  one  of  the  pieces  of  paper.  People  who 
had  been  frowning,  and  looking  troubled  and 
frightened,  when  they  saw  the  little  boy,  and  read 
his  paper,  smiled  and  took  courage.  Tired  soldiers 
read  his  words,  and  lifted  their  heads  again,  and 
were  made  more  brave.  He  had  put  a  great  idea 
into  their  hearts.  He  had  lit  the  flame  of  courage 
which  was  almost  dying  out. 

In  one  of  the  readers,  which  boys  and  girls  used 
to  have  at  school  when  I  was  a  boy,  and  which  per¬ 
haps  some  of  you  boys  and  girls  have  read,  too, 
there  was  a  story  called,  “  The  Victor  of  Marengo.” 


60  BOYS  WHO  WOULD  NOT  BE  BEATEN 


Sometimes  boys  would  learn  it  by  heart  and  de¬ 
claim  it  when  they  bad  to  speak  a  piece.  The  story 
of  the  victor  of  Marengo  was  a  story  of  a  drummer 
boy  in  tbe  army  of  tbe  great  Napoleon.  At  one 
point  in  tbe  battle  it  looked  as  tbougb  tbe  French 
were  being  beaten  back,  and  as  if  Napoleon  must 
order  them  to  retreat  to  keep  them  from  all  being 
killed  or  captured.  From  tbe  bill-top,  where  be 
stood,  be  looked  over  tbe  battle-field,  and  then 
be  turned  to  tbe  drummer  boy  by  bis  side  and  said, 
“  Boy,  beat  tbe  retreat.” 

Tbe  boy  did  not  stir. 

Napoleon  thought  be  bad  not  beard.  “  Boy,”  be 
said  more  loudly,  “  beat  tbe  retreat.” 

Once  again,  tbe  boy  only  looked  at  him  and 
never  moved. 

Very  sharply  and  angrily  Napoleon  said  again, 
“  Boy,  beat  tbe  retreat.” 

Tbe  boy  turned  to  Napoleon,  and  this  is  what 
be  said :  “  Sire,  I  don’t  know  bow !  But  I  can 
beat  tbe  charge!  I  can  beat  a  charge  that  would 
make  tbe  dead  fall  in  line!  I  beat  it  once  by  tbe 
bridge  of  Lodi ;  I  beat  it  at  tbe  Pyramids,  and,  0, 
Sire,  may  I  beat  it  here  ?  ” 

Napoleon  looked  at  tbe  boy  and  was  silent  for 
a  moment.  Then  be  smiled. 

“  Boy,”  be  said,  “  beat  tbe  charge !  ” 

So  the  boy  beat  tbe  charge,  and  to  tbe  music  of 
that  rolling  drum  tbe  French  armies  went  ahead, 
and,  according  to  tbe  story,  the  one  who  won  tbe 


BOYS  WHO  WOULD  NOT  BE  BEATEN  61 

battle  of  Marengo  was  not  tbe  great  Napoleon,  but 
the  little  drummer  boy  wbo  beat  the  charge. 

Sometimes  boys  and  girls  wonder  what  they  can 
do  in  the  battles  that  must  be  fought  for  God. 
They  may  see  a  great  many  people  round  them 
growing  very  discouraged.  Perhaps  they  are  at 
school,  and  something  is  going  on  there  which  they 
know  to  be  mean  and  low;  aiid  many  boys  and 
girls  are  saying  there  is  no  use  to  fight  against  it, 
because  too  many  want  it  to  be  that  way.  Perhaps 
it  is  out  among  their  friends,  or  even  in  the  Sun¬ 
day  School.  It  looks  as  though  the  right  things  are 
to  be  beaten  and  the  armies  of  God  are  retreating 
from  the  battle.  What  can  one  boy  or  girl  do  then  ? 
Everything!  It  was  only  one  little  boy  who  wrote 
the  words,  “  Prance  cannot  be  beaten,”  and 
strengthened  the  hearts  of  hundreds.  It  was  only 
one  who  said  that  he  did  not  know  how  to  beat  the 
retreat,  but  that  he  could  beat  the  charge.  We  need 
boys  and  girls  everywhere  to-day  of  that  same 
spirit. 

Once  upon  a  time,  long  ago,  you  remember  that 
the  people  of  Israel  came  out  of  Egypt,  with  Moses 
at  their  head.  They  reached  the  shores  of  the  Bed 
Sea,  with  the  Egyptians  pursuing  them,  and  the 
water  was  there  in  front.  People  began  to  whim¬ 
per  and  complain.  They  thought  there  was  nothing 
left  to  hope  for.  But  God  said  to  Moses:  “  Speak 
unto  the  children  of  Israel,  that  they  go  forward.” 
And  when  they  did  go  forward,  God  made  them  a 


62  BOYS  WHO  WOULD  NOT  BE  BEATEN 


wide  open  way.  When  we  are  about  some  good 
thing  for  God,  that  is  always  the  word  for  ns — not 
backward,  but  forward — not  discouragement,  but 
the  new  courage  which  beats  the  charge  and  never 
the  retreat,  and  says  of  all  the  right  things,  “  These 
cannot  be  beaten.” 


15 


FOETS  ON  WHEELS 

WHAT  I  have  in  my  hand  is  a  toy  for 
boys  to  play  with,  but  the  thing  which 
it  is  made  to  be  like  was  something 
very  different  from  a  toy.  You  see  what  this  is, 
with  its  queer,  sloping  back,  and  its  wheels  that 
crawl  inside  the  strange,  steel  bands  at  its  side,  and 
the  muzzles  of  the  guns  that  stick  out  from  its 
front.  It  is  a  tank. 

When  the  war  was  being  fought  in  Europe  we 
used  to  read  about  the  tanks.  Most  of  us  have  seen 
real  tanks  here  at  home,  because  they  were  brought 
back  and  shown  on  the  streets  and  in  parades  when 
the  soldiers  came.  They  crawled  and  waddled 
along  the  streets  with  their  engines  roaring  and 
their  steel  tracks  making  a  great  noise  on  the  pave¬ 
ment.  There  were  men  inside  them  running  the 
engines  and  turning  the  guns  about,  but  you  could 
not  see  the  men.  They  were  shut  up  entirely,  back 
of  the  steel  sides  and  under  the  steel  roof  of  the 
tank. 

It  was  a  bad  day  in  the  war  for  the  Germans 

when  they  first  heard  of  the  tanks  and  saw  them. 

Very  secretly  they  had  been  made  in  England  and 

63 


64 


FORTS  ON  WHEELS 


sent  across  the  seas  to  France  to  the  British  army. 
Up  the  roads  they  came  at  night,  moving  only 
when  it  was  very  dark  and  no  German  aeroplane 
could  see  them.  The  British  soldiers  laughed  and 
cheered  and  joked  like  hoys  at  these  queer,  lum¬ 
bering  things.  One  by  one,  and  in  twos  and 
threes,  they  were  taken  up  almost  to  the  battle  line 
and  hidden  in  little  patches  of  woods  and  other  con¬ 
cealed  places  until  they  were  ready  to  be  used. 
Then  one  morning,  all  of  a  sudden,  when  the  order 
was  given,  all  the  engines  and  all  the  tanks  began 
to  roar  at  once,  and  for  miles  and  miles  these  crawl¬ 
ing  things,  like  great,  lumbering  beasts,  went  out 
from  the  British  lines  with  the  British  soldiers  be¬ 
hind  them  over  the  ground  toward  where  the  Ger¬ 
mans  were.  Some  of  the  Germans  gave  one  look 
at  them  and  began  to  get  out  of  the  way.  Others 
fought,  like  the  brave  men  they  were,  but  it  was 
no  use.  The  tanks  smashed  right  through  the 
barbed  wire  which  the  Germans  had  strung  in  front 
of  their  trenches.  They  dipped  their  big,  steel 
noses  down  into  shell  holes,  and  balanced  for  a 
moment  on  edge,  and  then  slid  down  and  ploughed 
up  the  other  side.  They  straddled  the  trenches 
and  broke  down  the  dug-outs,  and  shot  with  their 
guns  against  all  the  Germans  who  dared  stand  up 
and  fight.  And  that  day  all  the  British  soldiers 
and  all  their  friends  were  glad  because  they  knew 
that  they  had  discovered  a  new  way  to  win  the  war, 
and  they  were  not  going  to  stay  forever  in  their 


/ 


FORTS  ON  WHEELS 


65 


own  trenches  hut  were  going  to  begin  to  get 
ahead. 

It  had  begun  to  look  before  that  as  though  none 
of  the  armies  would  ever  get  anywhere  any  more. 
There  were  the  Germans  in  their  lines  of  trenches 
hundreds  of  miles  clear  across  Belgium  and  North¬ 
ern  France.  There  was  no  way  of  getting  around 
them,  for  the  ocean  was  at  one  end  and  the  moun¬ 
tains  of  Switzerland  at  the  other,  and  it  did  not 
look  as  though  France  and  England  and  America, 
who  could  not  get  around,  could  get  through  either, 
because  the  Germans  had  built  everything  so  strong 
that  flesh  and  blood  men  could  not  break  down 
those  defenses.  There  was  line  after  line  of  barbed 
wire  stretched  in  and  out  among  steel  posts.  There 
were  trenches  dug  deep  in  the  ground,  and  little 
forts  here  and  there,  made  out  of  concrete,  with 
machine  guns  which  could  shoot  hundreds  of  bul¬ 
lets  a  minute.  The  Germans  were  quite  sure  that 
they  could  stay  there  in  their  lines  until  Dooms¬ 
day.  And  presently  the  French  and  the  English 
and  the  Americans  would  get  tired,  and  would  have 
to  make  peace  because  they  could  never  drive  the 
Germans  out,  and  there  was  nothing  else  to  do. 
But  “  No,”  said  the  English;  and  “  No  ”  said  the 
French,  and  “  No  ”  said  the  Americans.  We  must 
think  of  some  other  way  of  getting  the  Germans 
out.  It  will  not  do  for  us  just  to  stay  in  our 
trenches  and  to  keep  the  Germans  from  getting  at 


66 


FORTS  ON  WHEELS 


us.  We  must  get  at  them,  and  we  must  never  rest 
until  we  have  driven  them  clear  away. 

So  they  invented  the  tanks.  The  Germans  had 
forts  which  stood  still,  and  they  thought  that  even 
the  very  best  of  soldiers  could  never  capture  them. 
But  the  men  in  England  and  France  and  America 
made  the  tanks,  and  the  tanks  were  forts  on  wheels. 
They  did  not  just  stay  where  they  were.  They 
went  cruising  around  wherever  they  chose.  It  was 
a  new  idea,  and  the  Germans  had  never  figured  on 
anything  like  that. 

The  war  is  over,  and  all  of  us  are  very  glad  and 
grateful  that  it  is,  but  the  tanks  which  did  so  much 
in  the  war  have  a  sermon  to  preach  to  us  in  the 
kind  of  warfare  which  is  always  going  on. 

Sometimes  we  are  like  soldiers,  stranded  in  the 
trenches,  who  cannot  seem  to  get  anywhere.  Some 
sin  or  other  has  got  into  our  lives  and  fenced  itself 
round  with  such  a  barbed  wire  of  bad  habits  that 
we  cannot  drive  it  out.  It  has  dug  itself  in  as 
though  it  meant  to  stay.  Sometimes  boys  and  girls, 
and  the  men  and  women  which  boys  and  girls  grow 
up  into,  settle  down  as  though  they  could  never 
drive  the  evil  things  away.  They  must  just  accept 
the  bad  habits  in  their  own  hearts.  They  must  say 
of  the  wrong  things  in  their  world  that  they  have 
been  there  a  long  time,  and  that  they  will  probably 
remain. 

But  that  is  cowardice.  What  we  want  is  the 
spirit  which  never  will  rest  until  it  has  thought  up 


FORTS  ON  WHEELS 


67 


a  way  to  drive  the  evil  out.  Our  goodness  must  be 
not  like  our  own  trenches  where  we  sit  and  hold 
our  ground  and  are  satisfied  if  we  can  keep  from 
being  any  worse  than  we  already  are.  Goodness 
must  be  like  the  tank  which  goes  plunging  on 
against  anything,  determined  that  it  will  not  be 
stopped.  Goodness  must  be  a  fort  on  wheels  which 
is  forever  pushing  on  until  it  has  broken  the  lines 
of  wickedness  and  driven  sin  away. 

Here  is  a  verse  which  I  should  like  to  have  you 
learn,  for  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  who  was  a  good 
fighter,  wrote  it: 

“  Pour  forth  and  bravely  bear  your  part, 

O  knights  of  the  unshielded  heart, 

Forth  and  forever  forward,  out 
From  prudent  turret  and  redoubt!  ’* 

And  we  can  remember  the  words  of  St.  Paul, 
that  the  spirit  of  God  is  “  mighty  to  the  pulling 
down  of  strongholds.”  It  can  make  us  do  some¬ 
thing  better  than  just  hanging  on  to  the  little  good¬ 
ness  we  have  got.  It  can  fill  us  with  such  strength 
and  courage  that  we  will  be  making  goodness 
greater  all  the  time. 


16 


THE  CEOSS  MADE  OUT  OF  PALMS 


H  the  Sunday  before  Easter  in  many 
Churches  the  hoys  and  girls  who  come  to 
Sunday  School,  and  all  the  people  who 
come  to  Church,  are  given  little  crosses  to  pin  on 
their  coats  and  dresses.  These  crosses  are  made  of 
strips  of  palm  leaves.  When  you  think  of  it,  that 
seems  a  very  strange  thing  for  crosses  to  be 
made  of. 

Eor  palms  are  used  for  gladness,  and  for  tri¬ 
umph;  and  a  cross  means  pain  and  death.  Why 
should  things  like  palms,  which  suggest  so  much 
that  is  beautiful,  be  made  into  something  terrible 
like  a  cross?  Palms  and  crosses  seem  so  different 
that  they  do  not  belong  together  at  all. 

You  see  this  all  the  more  when  you  read  in  the 
gospels  the  story  of  the  Sunday  before  Easter, 
which  is  called  Palm  Sunday.  That  was  the  day 
when  Jesus  came  down  from  Galilee  with  a  great 
company  of  pilgrims  to  go  into  the  Holy  City. 
The  crowd  in  Jerusalem  had  learned  that  He  was 
coming.  They  were  very  excited  at  the  thought 
of  seeing  Jesus,  for  they  had  heard  many  wonder¬ 
ful  things  about  Him,  and  they  thought  He  would 

68 


THE  CROSS  MADE  OUT  OF  PALMS  69 

do  wonderful  things  for  them.  Perhaps  He  would 
be  a  great  King  and  reward  His  favourites,  and 
bring  benefits  to  those  who  followed  Him,  and  make 
everybody  prosperous  and  rich.  So  they  flocked 
out  of  the  gates  of  the  city  when  they  heard  that 
He  was  drawing  near.  They  set  up  great  shouts 
of  welcome.  They  stripped  the  beautiful,  broad 
leaves  from  the  palm  trees  which  grew  along  the 
road,  and  strewed  them  on  the  ground  to  make  a 
triumphant  way  for  Jesus  to  pass  over.  For  thus 
it  was  that  men  did  in  those  days  when  they  wanted 
to  greet  a  conqueror.  They  would  wave  palm 
leaves  before  him,  and  put  the  palm  branches  on 

his  road. 

So,  when  we  think  of  Jesus,  and  think  of  the 
palms,  we  see  again  the 'people  shouting  His  name, 
and  crowding  around  Him  as  though  they  admired 
Him  and  loved  Him  better  than  anyone  else  m  the 

world. 

But,  presently,  something  very  different  hap¬ 
pened.  People  began  to  find  out  that  Jesus  was 
not  going  to  do  the  kind  of  things  they  had  hoped. 
He  was  not  come  as  a  King,  to  make  everybody 
rich  of  a  sudden,  and  everything  easy  and  smooth. 
He  had  come  to  teach  the  love  of  God;  hut  men 
had  to  be  in  earnest  to  listen  to  Him.  He  had 
come  to  teach  all  people  how  to  live  as  their 
Bather’s  children;  and  that  was  a  very  beautiful 
thing,  but  a  very  hard  thing,  too.  So,  very  soon, 
their  feelings  began  to  grow  cool.  They  were  dis- 


70  THE  CROSS  MADE  OUT  OF  PALMS 


appointed,  and  as  they  were  disappointed  they 
began  to  grow  angry.  They  listened  to  evil  men 
who  wanted  to  get  rid  of  Jesus.  Before  many  days 
went  by,  the  same  crowd  which  had  gone  shouting 
out  to  meet  Him,  and  strewn  the  palm  branches 
on  His  road,  went  roaring  into  the  hall  of  Pilate, 
and  lifted  fierce  hands  against  Jesus,  and  cried, 
“  Crucify  Him !  ”  And  that  day  they  went  out  to 
Calvary,  and  looked  on  with  hard  eyes  as  He  was 
crucified. 

So  there  was  a  real  sense  in  which  the  palms  had 
changed  into  the  cross.  The  people  seemed  to  wel¬ 
come  Jesus  at  first,  hut  it  was  no  real  welcome.  It 
was  made  up  of  words, — very  shallow,  and  very 
false, — which  presently  changed  into  hateful  deeds. 
They  were  glad  one  day  to  name  His  name,  but 
just  as  glad  a  few  days  afterwards  to  see  Him  put 
to  death. 

And  is  not  that  the  way  it  is  sometimes  with 
people  even  now?  We  may  seem  to  welcome  Jesus, 
but  perhaps  that  welcome  is  not  real.  We  speak 
His  name  as  though  we  loved  Him,  and  then  we 
turn  against  Him,  as  though  we  did  not  love  Him 
at  all.  We  take  our  palms  of  welcome  and  out  of 
them  we  make  for  Him  a  cross. 

Think  a  little  and  you  will  see  how  this  is  so. 

Suppose  a  boy  comes  to  Sunday  School  and 
learns  about  Jesus.  People  think  that  he  is  a 
Christ-loving  boy.  Perhaps  he  even  joins  the 
Church,  and  stands  up  before  God  and  the  con- 


THE  GROSS  MADE  OUT  OF  PALMS  71 


gregation  and  says  that  lie  wants  to  follow  Jesus. 
Then  perhaps  the  next  day  he  goes  to  school,  and 
when  he  is  playing  baseball  he  plays  it  in  a  mean, 
unfair  way.  If  he  thinks  the  umpire  is  not  look¬ 
ing,  he  trips  up  another  boy  who  is  running  the 
bases.  He  plays  like  a  tough  instead  of  like  a  gen¬ 
tleman.  Or  he  bullies  some  small  boy  who  is  play¬ 
ing  the  game  with  him.  Then  other  boys  who  look 
at  him  may  shrug  their  shoulders.  They  think  to 
themselves :  “  Is  this  all  that  it  means  to  say  you 
want  to  be  Christ’s  follower  ?  ”  What  the  boy  said 
about  the  Lord  Jesus  does  not  matter  very  much. 
The  thing  that  counts  is  what  he  does.  Really  to 
follow  Jesus  means  courage,  and  honour,  and  fair¬ 
ness,  and  truth.  When  a  boy  throws  all  these 
things  away,  he  is  crucifying  the  spirit  of  Jesus, 
just  as  men  crucified  His  body  long  ago.  He  is 
turning  the  palms  of  the  fine  words  he  said  into  the 
cross  of  a  false  betrayal. 

Or  suppose  a  girl  who  has  said  that  she,  too, 
wants  to  learn  to  love  Christ  and  to  follow  Him, 
and  in  Sunday  School  is  quick  with  her  lessons,  and 
sings  the  hymns,  and  looks  as  glad  as  the  people 
did  who  came  out  of  Jerusalem  on  Palm  Sunday, 
goes  home  and  is  crabbed  and  cross.  Suppose  she 
is  in  a  bad  temper  about  everything  her  mother 
suggests  which  she  does  not  want  to  do,  and  is  con¬ 
tinually  insisting  that  everybody  else  should  do 
things  for  her,  and  never  wants  herself  to  be  loving 
and  helpful  in  all  the  little  things  at  home  which 


72  THE  CROSS  MADE  OUT  OF  PALMS 


might  be  done  for  others.  Do  you  think  that  the 
Lord  Christ  can  have  much  pleasure  in  the  palms 
of  the  words  she  said  and  the  hymns  she  sang  in 
Sunday  School?  Or  would  He  not  feel  instead 
so  sorry  for  her  forgetfulness?  The  palms  are 
changed  into  the  cross. 

Hut  what  we  have  said  need  not  be  the  end  of 
the  story.  If  it  is  possible  for  boys  and  girls  to 
fall  into  the  wrong  of  the  people  of  Jerusalem  who 
greeted  Jesus  with  a  welcome  which  was  false,  so 
it  is  possible  for  all  of  us  not  to  be  like  that  at  all, 
but  to  be  very  different.  Palms  do  not  have  to 
change  into  a  cross.  We  can  say  we  love  Him,  and 
want  to  follow  Him,  and  mean  it  altogether.  We 
can  be  Christians  who  once  having  welcomed  J esus 
into  our  lives  keep  Him  there  forever.  We  can 
live  lives  so  faithful  that  we  shall  be  always  prais¬ 
ing  Him,  and  making  others  look  up  in  expectation 
because  through  us  Jesus  will  be  coming  into  their 
midst  along  a  beautiful  way. 


17 

THE  MARRED  FACE  OF  CHRIST 


OVER  in  France  where  the  armies  fought 
hack  and  forth  in  the  great  war,  and  the 
terrible  shells  from  the  huge  guns  fell 
and  burst,  there  are  whole  wide  spaces  where  there 
is  nothing  left  but  ruin.  Sometimes  you  will  go 
through  a  village  and  see  only  heaps  of  dust  and 
crumbled  bricks.  Sometimes  part  of  the  walls  will 
be  standing,  just  enough  to  show  what  the  building 
used  to  be.  It  is  that  way  often  with  the  churches. 
There,  at  one  end,  may  be  a  broken  tower,  and  on 
the  side  the  frame  of  a  window  which  shows  by  its 
shape  that  it  belonged  to  a  church ;  and  perhaps  in¬ 
side  some  fragments  here  and  there  that  tell  you 
what  the  building  used  to  be. 

In  a  little  town  named  Vaubecourt,  not  very  far 
from  the  great  French  fortress  of  Verdun,  where 
the  fighting  was  so  terrible,  I  went  one  day  into 
the  ruins  of  a  church.  All  the  roof  was  gone  long 
ago.  The  great  bells  from  the  tower  had  crashed 
down  to  the  earth.  Everything  inside  the  walls 
had  been  destroyed;  but  the  cross  which  used  to 
stand  on  the  top  of  the  tower  was  there  in  the  mid¬ 
dle  of  the  fragments,  and  about  the  foot  of  it  lay 

73 


74  THE  MARRED  FACE  OF  CHRIST 


a  few  broken  things  which  once  had  been  a  part  of 
the  altar  or  of  the  little  statues  along  the  walls. 
Among  them  was  something  which  I  picked  up  and 
knew  to  have  been  the  face  of  Christ.  Only  half 
of  it  was  left,  but  there  was  something  about  it 
which  no  one  could  mistake.  There  is  no  face  like 
the  face  of  Christ.  Even  this  broken  fragment  was 
enough  to  show  what  it  was  meant  to  be. 

The  sight  of  it  made  war  seem  a  very  terrible 
thing.  Men  begin  to  hate  one  another,  and  then 
war  comes,  and  there  is  the  fearful  killing  and  all 
the  agony  of  pain.  In  the  midst  of  it  Christ  must 
be  suffering.  He  is  so  sorry  for  the  sins  and  the 
follies  of  men.  His  spirit  is  wounded,  like  the 
broken  statue  which  I  found.  When  Christian  men 
and  women  begin  to  remember  that,  they  will  be 
ashamed  of  the  greed  and  hate  and  wrong  that  grow 
into  wars,  and  wars  will  not  happen  any  more. 

But,  meanwhile,  you  and  I  need  to  remember 
that  we  ourselves  are  wounding  the  spirit  of  Jesus 
and  marring  His  face.  Whenever  there  is  ill- 
temper  and  meanness  among  us,  whenever  we  for¬ 
get  His  spirit  and  let  jealousy  and  envy  and  hatred 
have  possession,  our  hearts  are  like  the  place  where 
the  war  has  been.  The  temples  of  the  holy  thoughts 
in  which  Jesus  dwells  are  destroyed,  and  He,  Him¬ 
self,  is  hurt  and  scarred  in  the  midst  of  them. 

,  It  is  told  us  in  the  Hew  Testament  that  it  is  pos¬ 
sible  for  people,  by  the  wrong  they  do,  to  crucify 
the  Christ  afresh  and  put  Him  to  open  shame.  If 


THE  MARRED  FACE  OF  CHRIST  75 


we  remember  that,  and  remember  what  it  means  to 
hurt  the  One  who  has  loved  ns  most,  we  shall  be 
more  careful  not  to  let  sins  come  in  to  wreck  the 
lives  which  ought  to  be  kept  whole  and  beautiful 
for  Him. 


18 


THE  JUDGMENTS  OE  JESUS 


WHEN  we  read  the  gospels  we  are  always 
being  made  to  understand  how  gentle 
Jesus  was  with  those  whom  unfriendly 
people  hated  and  condemned  as  sinners.  There  was 
no  one  in  the  world  who  hated  sin  itself  so  much 
as  did  Jesus.  But  though  He  hated  the  wrong 
things  that  people  do,  He  was  very  gentle,  never¬ 
theless,  to  those  who  did  the  wrong.  For  He  be¬ 
lieved  that  most  people  can  he  taught  to  do  better 
if  they  are  encouraged,  and  that  there  are  a  great 
many  people  who  are  not  as  bad  as  they  seem,  be¬ 
cause  underneath  the  wrong  things  they  do  are 
hearts  which  are  ashamed  of  their  wrong-doings, 
and  that  really  want  to  be  kind. 

There  are  going  to  be  a  great  many  surprises 
when  at  the  end  of  our  lives  we  all  stand  up  before 
the  eyes  of  Jesus  and  have  Him  pass  His  judg¬ 
ment  upon  us.  Some  people  who  are  very  proud 
and  self-righteous,  who  have  never  committed  any 
crime,  nor  had  anybody  say  evil  of  them,  people 
who  are  very  respectable  citizens,  and  think  a  great 
deal  of  themselves,  may  stand  at  the  very  bottom 

in  the  judgment  of  Jesus;  because  He  knows  that 

76 


THE  JUDGMENTS  OF  JESUS 


77 


underneath  their  outward  respectability  are  cold 
and  selfish  hearts.  Some  of  those  whom  you  and 
I  may  have  despised  may  have  a  great  deal  to  teach 
us,  and  may  have  in  them  a  great  deal  that  we  wish 
we  had  when  they  stand  before  the  face  of  Jesus 
and  He  sees  what  is  really  in  their  hearts,  and 
makes  us  see. 

And  to  show  how  this  may  be  so  I  will  tell  you 
what  happened  one  day,  not  long  ago,  in  a  city. 
There  was  a  bad  old  woman  who  had  been  a  thief. 

She  had  fingers  which  just  seemed  to  reach  out  and 
itch  for  things  which  did  not  belong  to  her.  The 
police  knew  her,  had  arrested  her  once  or  twice, 
and  were  always  on  the  watch  for  her,  because  they 
thought  that  she  would  be  stealing  again  if  she  ever 
got  a  chance.  One  day  she  was  walking  in  a  park 
by  a  fountain  in  the  middle  to  which  all  the  paths 
led  up,  and  around  the  fountain  every  afternoon  a 
great  many  little  children  played.  As  she  was 
passing  along,  she  stooped  and  picked  up  something 
from  the  ground  and  wrapped  it  up  in  an  old  apron 
that  she  wore.  Then  she  looked  all  around  quickly, 
as  though  she  were  afraid  somebody  might  see  her, 
and  stooped  down  again  and  picked  up  something 
else  and  wrapped  that  in  her  apron,  and  so  kept 
on  in  a  hurried  way  picking  things  up  and  wrap¬ 
ping  them  in  her  apron,  and  then  she  started  off 
toward  the  street.  But,  meanwhile,  a  policeman 
over  on  the  corner,  standing  under  a  tree  where  he 
could  not  be  seen  well,  had  been  watching  her.  He  y 


78 


THE  JUDGMENTS  OF  JESUS 


had  seen  her  picking  np  something,  and  immedi¬ 
ately  he  was  sure  that  she  had  found  something 
valuable  and  was  stealing  it.  So,  as  she  started 
off,  he  shouted  to  her  roughly,  and  came  running 
up,  and  demanded  to  know  what  she  had  in  her 
apron.  The  old  woman  was  very  frightened  and 
declared  that  she  did  not  have  anything.  Then 
the  policeman  took  her  by  the  shoulder  and  told  her 
that  she  was  lying,  that  she  had  something  which 
was  stolen  wrapped  up  in  her  apron,  and  that  he 
was  going  to  see  it  then  and  there.  So,  tremblingly, 
the  old  woman  unwrapped  her  apron.  There,  in 
it,  were  handfuls  of  broken  glass  from  a  bottle. 

The  policeman  was  astonished.  “  What  are  you 
doing  with  that  glass  ?  ”  he  demanded.  “  It  is  not 
good  for  anything.” 

“  I  know  it,”  said  the  old  woman,  “  hut  I  was 
afraid  the  little  children  might  cut  their  feet.” 

So  I  wonder  whether  she  may  not  look  very  dif¬ 
ferent  from  the  way  she  looks  to  us,  whether  there 
may  not  fall  on  her  a  light  from  the  eyes  of  Jesus 
that  might  even  make  her  face  look  beautiful,  when 
she  stands  in  His  presence?  For  He  it  was  who 
said,  “  Whosoever  shall  receive  one  of  such  chil¬ 
dren  in  my  Name  receiveth  Me,”  and  “  Inasmuch 
as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these, 
ye  have  done  it  unto  Me.” 


19 


THE  WINGS  OF  THE  MAPLE 

HAVE  you  ever  looked  out  in  the  spring¬ 
time  and  watched  the  maple  trees?  If 
you  have,  you  have  seen  a  beautiful  thing. 
Long  before  the  leaves  come,  something  else  comes 
on  all  the  boughs  and  twigs.  They  look  like  little 
wings,  coming  out  two  by  two,  and  after  awhile 
they  drop  from  the  trees  and  go  spinning  down  to 
earth.  They  are  the  seeds  of  the  maple,  and  the 
tree  is  giving  them  wings  so  that  the  winds  may 
blow  them  here  and  there,  and  scatter  them  over 
the  ground, — it  may  be  for  yards  and  yards  out¬ 
side  of  the  widest  circle  of  the  tree. 

The  maple  does  not  clothe  itself  first.  It  does 
not  get  so  busy  dressing  itself  up  in  the  spring 
finery  of  its  new  leaves  that  it  forgets  all  about  its 
seed,  and  only  says  as  an  after-thought, — “  Oh, 
dear,  I  have  been  so  busy  that  I  never  thought  of 
it  at  all,  and  now  it  is  too  late! ”  No, — every  year, 
and  always  dependably,  the  maple  makes  its  seeds 
first,  and  gives  them  wings  and  sends  them  out. 
It  is  thinking  of  the  days  and  years  which  are  going 
to  be.  It  must  provide  other  little  trees  so  that 
when  the  big  maple  is  gone  there  will  be  other 
trees  to  take  its  place. 


79 


80 


THE  WINGS  OF  THE  MAPLE 


Do  you  not  think  that  all  Christian  people,  and 
all  Christian  churches,  can  learn  a  lesson  from  the 
maple  tree?  Some  of  us  are  so  busy  thinking  of 
our  new  clothes  and  Easter  hats,  and  all  the  things 
we  want  to  make  us  fine,  and  the  Churches  are  so 
busy  thinking  of  the  new  decorations,  and  organs, 
and  all  sorts  of  adornments  which  they  want  for 
themselves,  that  we  do  not  remember  our  duty  to 
give  our  money  and  strength  to  other  people.  We 
imagine  that  it  is  a  very  good  thing  for  the  world 
that  God  has  created  us,  and  it  does  not  make  much 
difference  whether  any  other  Christians  are  created 
or  not.  And,  indeed,  the  truth  is  that  if  those  other 
Christians  were  to  be  no  better,  nor  any  more  un¬ 
selfish  than  we,  perhaps  it  might  be  just  as  well 
that  they  should  not  be  created. 

But  people  who  are  really  blessing  God  for  all 
the  life  and  Christian  privileges  which  He  has 
given  them,  must  be  like  the  maple  tree.  Just  as 
when  the  spring  sap  rises  in  the  maple,  the  first 
thing  it  does  is  to  make  the  seeds  that  shall  plant 
other  maple  trees,  so,  when  there  thrills  in  us  some 
new  joy  or  gratitude  for  health  or  wealth  or  happi¬ 
ness,  which  God  has  given  us,  we  shall  want  to 
share  it.  We  shall  want  to  be  missionary  Chris¬ 
tians  and  belong  to  missionary  Churches.  We  shall 
show  our  gladness  for  what  we  have  by  giving  of 
our  best,  that  others  may  have  it  too. 


20 


THE  SON  OF  GOD’S  TRAIN 

THERE  is  a  little  boy  I  know  who  one  day 
was  playing  with  his  toys.  He  had  them 
all  spread  out  on  the  floor,  but  the  one 
he  was  playing  with  most  was  his  railroad  train. 
He  had  some  tracks  which  fitted  together,  and  he 
arranged  them  very  carefully  so  that  they  would  be 
level  and  smooth  for  the  train  to  run  on.  He  had 
an  engine  with  a  spring  inside  it  so  that  it  ran  when 
he  wound  it  up.  He  put  the  engine  on  the  track 
and  coupled  the  tender  on  behind  it,  and  three  or 
four  cars  behind  that.  Then  he  looked  at  it  all 
very  proudly,  and  he  said: 

“  This  is  the  Son  of  God’s  train.” 

His  mother,  who  was  in  the  room  with  him,  was 
very  much  astonished.  “  What  did  you  say  ?  ”  she 
asked. 

“  I  said,  c  This  is  the  Son  of  God’s  train,’  ”  said 
the  little  boy.  “  It  is  just  like  the  hymn  we  sing 
in  church: 

*  The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  war, 

Who  follows  in  His  train  ?  3  ” 

Then  I  expect  his  mother  could  not  help  smiling 

81 


82 


THE  SON  OF  GOD’S  TRAIN 


at  the  little  boy’s  mistake,  for  of  course  this  is  not 
the  kind  of  train  that  is  meant  in  the  hymn  we 
sing. 

The  hymn  does  speak  of  a  “  train,”  and  asks  who 
will  follow  the  Son  of  God  in  it.  But  the  train 
it  means  is  of  a  different  sort.  You  remember  how 
in  the  days  of  the  war  sometimes  you  would  look 
out  and  there  would  be  the  soldiers  going  by  in  the 
streets.  Perhaps  they  were  marching  away  to  be 
carried  to  the  harbours,  and  so  by  the  great  ships 
across  the  seas  to  France.  One  day  you  might  see 
a  long  line  of  artillery  going  by,  one  behind  another 
— the  great  guns  and  the  caissons  on  which  the 
shells  are  carried.  Then  people  said,  “  Look  at  that 
train  of  artillery  going  by !  ”  Or  perhaps  it  would 
be  company  after  company  of  soldiers,  with  their 
rifles  on  their  shoulders,  and  people  would  say, 
“  There  goes  a  train  of  infantry.”  Wherever  there 
is  a  long  procession  of  men  following  a  leader,  there 
is  something  that  is  called  a  train.  And  that  is  the 
sort  of  a  train  which  the  hymn  means  when  it 
speaks  of  the  train  of  the  Son  of  God.  It  is  the 
marching  army  of  the  soldiers  of  Christ  who  follow 
Him  wherever  His  spirit  leads,  to  break  down  the 
things  that  are  wrong,  and  to  save  and  help  every¬ 
thing  that  is  good. 

But  there  are  a  great  many  people — and  some  of 
them  are  grown  people,  too — who  really  make  the 
same  sort  of  mistake  as  the  little  boy  made,  though 
they  may  not  know  it.  They  think  that  following 


THE  SON  OF  GOD’S  TRAIN 


83 


the  Son  of  God  is  a  comfortable,  easy  thing,  like 
riding  on  a  train  of  cars. 

There  are  the  people,  for  instance,  who  seem  to 
imagine  that  all  they  need  to  do  to  be  Christians 
is  to  come  to  Church  on  Sunday  and  sit  in  a  par¬ 
ticular  corner  of  their  own  pew,  with  their  cushion 
behind  their  back  (and  be  very  cross  if  anyone  gets 
into  their  especial  seat  before  them),  and  so  while 
the  choir  sings,  and  the  minister  preaches,  and  they 
do  not  do  anything  much  but  just  be  there,  they 
will  somehow  get  carried  a  little  closer  to  heaven. 
And  then  there  are  ever  so  many  boys  and  girls, 
and  older  people,  who  think  that  somebody  else  can 
draw  them  along  to  be  good  without  their  taking 
any  special  trouble  about  it.  I  know  grown  men 
who  think  they  do  not  have  to  come  to  Church,  or 
even  say  their  prayers,  or  inconvenience  themselves 
in  Christian  work,  because  their  wives  do  all  these 
things,  and  they  suppose  that  that  will  suffice  for 
the  family.  And  I  expect  you  have  seen  a  good 
many  boys  and  girls  who  are  quite  willing  that  all 
the  sweet,  unselfish  things  at  home  should  be  done 
by  their  mothers.  They  do  not  trouble  to  think  of 
lovely  things  to  do  for  the  sake  of  others.  They 
do  not  try  very  hard  to  keep  their  own  tempers, 
and  to  forget  it  if  they  should  happen  to  feel  a  little 
badly,  and  to  think  instead  of  how  they  can  make 
everything  glad  for  everyone  else  at  home.  They 
just  take  it  for  granted  that  their  mother  will  do 
all  the  generous  deeds  that  need  to  be  done.  She 


84 


THE  SON  OF  GOD’S  TRAIN 


will  pull  everybody  out  of  difficulties,  and  set 
things  on  the  right  track,  and  all  that  the  rest  need 
to  do  is  to  take  things  comfortably  and  be  glad  that 
she  is  there. 

But  all  this,  when  we  really  begin  to  think  about 
it,  is  a  very  mean  way  to  be  content  to  live.  No¬ 
body  can  be  following  the  Son  of  God  who  does 
that  way.  For  following  in  His  train  does  not 
mean  to  sit  down  in  a  comfortable  seat  and  be  car¬ 
ried  into  pleasures  by  no  effort  of  our  own. 

No,  the  Son  of  God’s  train  is  what  I  said  it  was 
just  now.  It  is  the  army  of  Christian  soldiers  who 
follow  their  leader  on  ways  which  are  brave,  and 
may  be  hard.  The  wars  between  nations  here  in 
the  world — the  wars  which  are  fought  with  swords 
and  rifles  and  guns — do  not  go  on  all  the  time,  and 
we  hope  that  after  a  while  the  world  will  grow 
enough  better  so  that  there  shall  not  be  any  such 
wars  and  killing  any  more.  But  there  is  a  kind 
of  great  and  noble  war  which  goes  on  always,  and 
must  go  on  forever.  It  is  the  war  of  goodness 
against  evil,  the  war  of  conscience  against  the 
things  we  know  to  be  wrong,  the  war  of  everybody 
who  wants  this  world  to  be  a  fine  and  Christlike 
place  against  all  that  would  fill  it  with  the  spirit 
of  the  devil.  Every  time  a  boy  sets  himself  to 
speak  the  truth  in  the  face  of  mean  things  which 
other  boys  were  about  to  start  to  do,  or  to  protect 
some  boy  who  was  about  to  be  bullied  •  every  time 
a  girl  tries  to  change  the  spirit  of  a  group  of  other 


THE  SON  OF  GOD’S  TRAIN 


85 


girls  from  gossip  and  ugly  tale-bearing  to  tbe  way 

of  thinking  which  is  generous  and  kind ;  every  time 

& 

anybody  stands  up  for  anything  that  is  right  and 
may  be  unpopular,  instead  of  the  thing  that  is 
wrong  which  was  about  to  prevail, — then  they  are 
Christian  soldiers  who  follow  in  the  train  of  the 
Son  of  God.  Before  us  always  He  leads  the  way, 
while  unfurled  before  our  conscience  is  His  great 
flag  on  which  is  the  sign  of  the  cross;  and  if  we 
would  follow  Him,  we  must  remember  that  the 
cross  means  courage  and  self-denial,  and  that  it  is 
worth  while  choosing  these  in  order  to  be  able  to 
follow  in  the  train  of  the  Son  of  God. 


21 


BUILDERS  OF  DREAMS 

ORE  of  the  most  interesting  places  in  all 
this  country,  and  a  place  to  which  every 
hoy  and  girl  who  loves  brave  deeds  ought 
to  go  whenever  the  chance  comes,  is  the  island  of 
Jamestown.  For  there,  more  than  three  hundred 
years  ago,  landed  the  men  who  were  to  build  the 
first  lasting  settlement  of  English-speaking  people 
here  in  the  Rew  World.  When  they  came,  except 
for  a  few  Spaniards  and  Frenchmen  far  in  the 
south  and  in  the  north  of  this  great  land  which  is 
now  America,  there  were  no  people  here  except  the 
Indians.  Until  the  time  of  Christopher  Columbus, 
nobody  had  even  known  that  any  such  vast  country 
as  this  which  we  live  in  existed  on  this  side  of  the 
earth.  Even  Columbus  did  not  understand  what 
it  was  that  he  had  discovered.  He  had  set  out  not 
so  much  to  find  a  new  country  as  to  find  a  way  to 
circle  the  earth,  since  he  believed  the  earth  was 
round,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  most  of  the  people 
of  his  time  believed  that  it  was  flat,  and  were  sure 
that  if  a  man  sailed  on  far  enough  he  would  tumble 
over  the  edge.  Columbus  opened  the  way  to  the 

West,  and  other  men  who  came  after  him  sailed 

86 


BUILDERS  OF  DREAMS 


87 


up  and  down  tlie  shores  of  this  new  land  and  began 
to  get  at  least  a  little  idea  of  the  wonderful  coun¬ 
try  it  might  prove  to  be. 

Then  other  men  conceived  another  daring 
thought.  Now  that  the  new  land  had  been  discov¬ 
ered,  they  would  send  out  adventurers  to  take  pos¬ 
session  of  it,  to  build  their  homes  in  it,  and  to  make 
a  new  nation.  It  seemed  like  a  day-dream  to 
imagine  such  a  thing,  because  the  seas  were  wide, 
and  the  new  land  terribly  far  away,  and  it  was 
only  a  wilderness,  where  the  men  who  came  would 
be  obliged  to  begin  to  make  their  homes  with  noth¬ 
ing  but  the  empty  sea  behind  them,  and  the  dark 
forests  before.  Nevertheless,  though  it  seemed 
only  a  dream,  men  kept  dreaming  it,  and  the  more 
they  followed  the  dream,  the  more  the  blood  stirred 
in  their  veins,  and  the  more  they  were  determined 
to  make  the  dream  come  true. 

There  is  a  picture  which  some  of  you  may  have 
seen  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  when  he  was  a  little 
boy.  There  he  sits  with  another  lad  about  his  own 
age  on  a  wharf  on  the  shores  of  Old  England,  listen¬ 
ing  to  a  sailor  who  is  telling  of  voyages  overseas. 
The  sailor’s  arm  is  pointing  out  over  the  ocean,  and 
you  can  imagine  as  you  look  at  his  face  what 
marvelous,  strange  things  he  is  telling;  and  Walter 
Raleigh,  the  boy,  is  listening,  and  his  eyes  are  full 
of  dreams.  When  he  grew  to  be  a  man,  this  same 
Sir  Walter  was  one  of  the  bravest  of  all  the  ad¬ 
venturers  to  the  New  World.  He  sent  out  a  colony 


88 


BUILDERS  OF  DREAMS 


of  people  before  tbe  one  who  went  to  Jamestown, 
and  they  landed  at  a  place  called  Roanoke  Island; 
and  though  all  that  colony  disappeared,  and  nobody 
knows  to  this  day  wbat  became  of  them,  Sir  Walter 
was  not  discouraged.  To  the  end  of  bis  life  he  kept 
his  faith  that  English  colonists  should  possess  the 
Re w  World;  and  he  was  right. 

Then  came  the  men  to  Jamestown.  Three  tiny 
little  ships  brought  them  across  the  ocean — ships 
that  would  look  like  toys  beside  the  ships  that  come 
into  our  harbours  now.  They  were  made  of  wood, 
and  they  had,  of  course,  only  sails  to  carry  them 
on,  because  that  was  long  before  the  time  when  men 
had  imagined  such  a  thing  as  steamboats.  Weeks 
and  weeks  and  weeks  it  took  them  to  cross  the  sea, 
but  at  length  one  day  they  sailed  into  the  mouth 
of  the  wide  river  to  which  they  gave  the  name  of 
the  James,  and  at  the  place  which  they  named 
J amestown  they  went  ashore.  Their  minister 
spread  a  sail  for  a  cover  between  the  trees,  and 
there  he  read  the  service  out  of  the  beautiful  old 
Prayer  Book  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  men 
knelt  down  and  had  the  communion  for  the  first 
time  on  the  shores  of  the  Rew  World,  just  as  their 
fathers  had  done  in  the  Old  World  through  the 
long,  long  years.  They  built  a  church ;  they  set  up 
palisades  of  stakes  to  make  a  fort;  they  built  their 
houses,  too;  and  so  they  established  this  settlement 


BUILDERS  OF  DREAMS 


89 


winch  was  to  he  the  beginning  of  the  nation  which 
you  and  I  love  and  belong  to  to-day. 

How  was  it  that  they  did  it?  It  was  because 
men  dared  believe  in  their  dreams.  Like  Sir  Wal¬ 
ter  Raleigh,  they  had  the  courage  to  think  of  great, 
wonderful  things,  and  to  believe  that  those  won¬ 
derful  things  could  be  made  to  come  true.  Ordi¬ 
nary  people  in  England  would  probably  have 
shaken  their  heads.  They  would  have  said,  (i  All 
this  idea  of  building  a  new  nation  over  in  that 
wilderness  is  a  wild  imagination.  There  is  no  use 
thinking  of  such  an  unheard-of  thing.”  But  the 
great  men  were  the  great  dreamers.  They  said  to 
themselves,  “  The  biggest  things  we  have  thought 
of  are  not  too  big  to  try  to  do.” 

So  America  was  founded  by  men  who  had  the 
courage  to  believe  in  their  dreams.  And  when  I 
think  of  that,  I  like  to  think  of  One  who  was  the 
greatest  Dreamer  of  all  time.  Once  there  was  a 
little  boy  who  lived  in  a  town  among  the  hills. 
Sometimes  he  would  climb  to  the  top  of  the  hills 
and  look  out  over  the  wide  world  that  was  spread 
below.  He  would  see  people  going  up  and  down 
the  roads.  He  would  see  legions  of  soldiers  march¬ 
ing,  with  eagles  carried  on  standards  at  their  head. 
They  were  the  legions  of  Rome,  and  the  sight  of 
them  made  Him  think  of  that  empire  of  Rome 
which  in  His  day  controlled  almost  all  the  earth. 
But  this  lad  on  the  hills  was  dreaming  of  a  King¬ 
dom  that  should  be  mightier  than  the  empire  of 


"90 


BUILDERS  OF  DREAMS 


Rome,  or  than  any  other  empire  which  soldiers 
could  keep.  For  the  lad  on  the  hills  was  Jesus, 
and  He  was  thinking  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  He 
was  believing  that  in  the  long,  long  time  to  come, 
the  whole  world  should  he  won  for  God,  because 
all  the  hearts  of  men  everywhere  should  be  con¬ 
quered  by  the  thought  of  the  love  of  God,  and 
should  want  to  live  as  God’s  children  should.  Evil 
men  laughed  and  shook  their  heads  with  scorn  in 
His  day,  long  ago.  And  evil  men,  and  worldly- 
minded  men  in  the  days  since,  have  not  believed  it. 
They  have  thought  that  His  dream  of  all  the  world 
made  good,  and  true,  and  merciful  was  only  a  wild 
imagination.  They  have  not  believed  in  mission¬ 
aries  going  out  to  heathen  lands,  and  they  have 
said,  “  What  is  the  use  of  such  a  foolish  effort  ?  ” 
They  have  not  even  believed  that  Christianity  at 
home  could  go  outside  the  Church  and  outside  of 
Sunday,  and  make  all  our  every-day  life  full  of  the 
thought  of  God.  But  the  great  men  and  women 
have  been  those,  who,  like  J esus,  dreamed  the 
dream  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  things  that 
seem  to  ordinary  folk  impossible  can  come  true  if 
only  enough  of  us  have  faith  to  believe  as  Jesus 
did.  It  was  the  power  of  great  beliefs  that  took 
a  wilderness  and  made  it  into  a  nation.  And  it  is 
the  power  of  great  beliefs  that  will  take  everything 
which  is  wrong  in  this  world  of  ours  and  change  it, 
and  build  it  into  something  better  in  the  name  of 
God.  Boys  and  girls,  above  all  others,  can  be  the 


BUILDERS  OF  DREAMS 


91 


builders  of  the  newer  and  nobler  life.  For  tbe 
heart  of  a  boy  and  girl  is  full  of  dreams,  and  all 
that  we  need  to  do  is  to  make  sure  that  our  dreams 
are  high,  and  brave,  and  unselfish,  like  the  dreams 
of  Jesus. 


22 


THE  HEKOISM  OF  HOLDING  ON 

LAST  time  we  began  to  think  about  the 
settlement  at  Jamestown,  and  of  all  tbe 
men  there  and  elsewhere  in  the  beginnings 
of  America,  who  dared  to  follow  the  great,  courage¬ 
ous  dreams  which  ordinary  people  would  have 
smiled  at. 

Hut  if  you  will  go  to  Jamestown,  or  if  you  will 
go  to  the  place  where  the  Pilgrims  landed,  not 
many  years  afterwards,  on  the  wintry  coast  of 
Massachusetts,  you  will  know  that  it  was  not  only 
the  first  enthusiasm  of  a  bold  adventure  which  was 
needed.  Those  adventurers  had  to  have  the  perse¬ 
verance  and  the  patience  to  keep  on  when  it  looked 
as  though  everything  were  hopeless,  and  as  though 
the  dream  were  about  to  be  smothered  in  disaster. 

There  at  J amestown,  in  the  first  place,  there  was 
not  enough  food  to  eat.  Of  course,  when  the  Col¬ 
onists  landed  from  the  ships,  no  gardens  nor  any 
ploughed  fields  were  there.  There  was  nothing  but 
the  little  strip  of  sand  on  the  shore  of  the  river, 
and  the  deep  forests  beyond.  Little  by  little  the 
trees  had  to  be  cleared  away  before  there  was  any 

space  even  to  plant  seed.  The  food  they  had 

92 


THE  HEROISM  OP  HOLDING  ON  93 


brought  in  their  ships  was  soon  exhausted,  and 
their  only  hope  at  first  was  to  try  to  buy  food  from 
the  Indians,  or  to  trade  with  them;  and  though 
sometimes  they  could  do  this,  sometimes  they  could 
not. 

Then,  as  the  hot  days  came  on,  and  the  unhealthy 
fogs  began  to  rise  from  the  swamps  of  the  river, 
men  fell  sick  of  the  fever.  They  had  no  good  doc¬ 
tors,  nor  any  healing  medicines  such  as  we  have 
to-day.  And  presently  men  were  dying  so  fast  that 
it  looked  as  though  the  whole  colony  very  shortly 
must  disappear. 

Furthermore,  there  was  the  danger  from  the  In¬ 
dians  themselves.  Sometimes  they  seemed  friendly, 
but  then  again  one  could  never  tell.  Now  and  then 
the  man  who  strayed  out  beyond  the  fortifications 
would  be  killed  and  never  heard  of  any  more.  So 
from  hunger  and  fever,  and  the  peril  of  Indians, 
it  looked  as  though  the  little  colony  would  be  de¬ 
stroyed. 

At  last  there  came  a  winter  so  terrible  that  the 
men  who  were  left  grew  desperate.  It  was  called 
u  the  starving  time.”  Pood  had  gone,  and  the 
houses  were  falling  into  ruins  because  men  were 
too  weak  to  build  them  up  again,  and  there  seemed 
nothing  left  except  to  abandon  the  settlement  and 
go  home  before  all  should  die.  And  so  with  two 
little  ships  which  had  come  from  England  in  the 
meantime, — the  u  Patience”  and  the  u  Deliver¬ 
ance,” — the  colonists  started  down  the  river,  be- 


94  THE  HEROISM  OF  HOLDING  ON 


lieving  that  their  hope  had  come  to  its  end.  But 
before  they  could  reach  the  sea,  they  looked,  and 
there  was  the  sail  of  another  ship  coming  in.  Lord 
He  la  Warr  was  come  from  England  with  more 
men  to  help  them,  and  with  food.  So,  weak  as  they 
were,  they  turned  hack  to  go  ashore  at  Jamestown 
and  claim  again  the  settlement  which  they  had  al¬ 
most  lost.  Never  afterwards  was  there  any  such 
possibility  that  it  would  fail.  Twelve  years  later 
there  was  a  terrible  massacre  by  the  Indians,  and 
four  hundred  people  up  and  down  the  shores  of 
the  James  River  were  killed  in  one  day.  But  the 
colonists  were  not  dismayed,  and  Jamestown  was 
to  live  and  grow  until  the  settlement  there  had 
spread  to  other  settlements  along  the  river,  and 
Virginia,  the  oldest  of  the  colonies,  and  the  mother 
of  the  States,  had  been  established  beyond  any  fear 
of  destruction. 

The  men  who  landed  at  Plymouth,  in  Massa¬ 
chusetts,  were  of  that  same  courage,  too.  In  the 
first  winter  after  their  ships  had  brought  them  to 
that  shore,  nearly  half  of  their  whole  number  per¬ 
ished.  They  buried  their  dead  on  the  slopes  of 
the  hill,  and  sowed  wheat  over  their  graves  so  that 
the  Indians  should  not  know  how  many  had  died. 
They  set  their  faces  grimly,  and  determined  that, 
come  what  might,  they  would  not  fail.  One  of  the 
old  historians  wrote  of  them  these  heroic  words 
which  it  is  good  for  us  always  to  remember :  “  All 
great  and  honourable  actions  are  accompanied  with 


THE  HEROISM  OF  HOLDING  ON  95 

great  difficulties,  *  *  *  and  all  of  them  through 
the  help  of  God,  by  fortitude  and  patience  might 
either  be  borne  or  overcome.” 

So  the  settlement  endured,  and  America  was 
made  possible  not  only  because  men  dreamed  their 
brave  dreams,  but  bcause  they  carried  them  through. 
Suppose  they  had  grown  faint-hearted?  Suppose 
they  had  said  at  Jamestown,  when  Lord  De  la 
Warr’s  ships  came  in,  “  It  is  no  use  to  try  again.” 
Suppose  they  had  said  in  the  year  of  the  Indian 
massacres,  “  It  is  too  dangerous.  The  time  has 
come  for  all  of  us  to  leave  this  deadly  adventure 
and  go  home  again  across  the  seas.”  Suppose  men 
had  said  at  Plymouth,  in  that  first  bitter  winter, 
“  This  is  too  hard  and  inhospitable  a  land ;  we  can¬ 
not  endure  the  difficulties  here.”  What,  then, 
would  have  become  of  America,  and  what  would 
have  become  of  us?  Maybe  you  and  I  would  be 
Indians,  dancing  around  a  fire,  with  paint  and 
feathers  on !  Or  maybe  we  would  not  even  be  liv¬ 
ing  at  all. 

So  the  thing  that  we  remember  when  we  think 
of  the  builders  of  America  is  the  stout-heartedness 
which  began  a  great  adventure  and  carried  it 
through.  That  was  what  was  needed  in  the  build¬ 
ing  of  a  nation,  and  that  is  what  is  needed  in  the 
work  of  God  everywhere.  If  God  gives  us  some¬ 
thing  to  do  for  Him  which  turns  out  to  be  difficult, 
if  He  puts  in  our  hearts  a  duty  which  we  know 
is  the  finest  thing  we  can  attempt,  if  He  tells  our 


96  THE  HEROISM  OF  HOLDING  ON 


consciences  to  plant  some  new  flag  of  truth  and 
purity  there  in  our  school,  or  among  our  friends, 
and  makes  us  know  that  we  ought  to  stand  by  it, 
then  let  us  remember  the  heroes  who  have  taught 
us  that  the  things  which  are  once  attempted  in 
God’s  name  can  he  carried  through  by  His  strength. 
We  can  remember  those  brave  words  of  one  of  the 
old  heroes  which  have  come  down  to  us  through 
hundreds  of  years  (if  you  want  to  find  them,  they 
are  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Hook  of  Deuteron¬ 
omy),  “  Behold!  The  Lord  thy  God  hath  set  the 
land  before  thee;  fear  not,  neither  be  discouraged.” 


23 


SERVICE  ELAGS 

OR  Memorial  Day  there  are  flags  out  every¬ 
where  in  the  city,  and  in  front  of  many 
of  the  churches  you  will  see  what  are 
called  the  “  Service  Flags.”  They  used  to  be  hung 
there  during  the  war,  and  at  special  times  like 
Memorial  Day,  they  are  hung  there  again.  They 
are  white  flags  with  red  borders,  spangled  over 
with  blue  stars.  Every  star  represents  someone 
who  went  from  that  church  to  serve  the  country  in 
the  days  of  the  war,  and  every  gold  star  represents 
one  who  laid  down  his  life. 

When  we  remember  the  flags  of  Memorial  Day, 
it  is  well  to  realize  the  kind  of  lives  that  deserve 
to  he  remembered.  Suppose  in  war  times  some¬ 
body  had  said,  “  I  am  not  going  to  risk  my  life  for 
somebody  else.  I  am  not  going  to  go  off  into  any 
army  and  serve  the  country.  I  am  going  to  stay 
home  and  make  money.  I  will  buy  a  great  many 
barrels  of  flour,  because  in  war  time,  when  the  men 
have  gone  from  the  farms,  flour  will  be  scarce ;  and 
the  people  in  the  armies  who  have  to  have  it  will 
pay  any  price  I  choose  to  ask;  and  when  I  sell  the 
barrels  I  bought,  I  shall  grow  very  rich.”  Suppose 

someone  did  that,  and  did  grow  very  rich.  He 

97 


98 


SERVICE  FLAGS 


might  have  a  big  bank  account,  and  might  be  known 
among  the  people  who  handle  money,  but  he  cer¬ 
tainly  would  not  get  a  star  on  any  service  flag,  and 
he  would  not  be  remembered  when  people  came  to 
consider  the  ones  whom  they  wanted  to  honour. 

Very  often  we  think  the  way  to  get  ourselves 
recognized  is  to  do  something  big  for  ourselves. 
Boys  and  girls  imagine  that,  because  they  see  so 
many  men  and  women  who  think  so  too.  They 
think  that  if  they  can  make  more  money  than  any¬ 
one  else,  or  build  the  finest  houses,  or  have  the  best 
clothes,  they  will  be  honoured,  and  everyone  else 
will  wish  to  be  like  them.  It  may  seem  that  way 
for  a  little  while,  but  when  people  really  begin  to 
think,  they  know  that  the  persons  they  want  to 
honour  are  not  the  ones  who  snatch  and  grab  for 
themselves,  but  those  who  try  to  help  others  and 
try  to  make  their  country  better  because  they  have 
given  to  it  the  best  they  had. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  little  boy  who,  in  the  time 
during  the  war,  when  the  service  flags  were  seen 
everywhere,  was  allowed  one  night  to  sit  up  later 
than  he  had  ever  sat  up  before,  so  that  for  the  first 
time  he  saw  the  sky  at  night  all  full  of  stars.  He 
looked  up  at  it  in  wonder,  and  clapped  his  hands. 
He  said,  u  Look  at  God’s  service  flag ! 99  He 
thought  that  the  stars  in  the  heavens  were  the  stars 
on  the  service  flag  of  God.  And  God  does  have  His 
service  flag.  There  are  more  stars  on  it  than  there 
are  stars  in  the  skies,  for  the  Book  of  Daniel  tells 


SERVICE  FLAGS 


99 


us  that  “  they  who  turn  many  to  righteousness  shall 
shine  as  the  stars,  forever  and  ever.”  Everyone 
who  is  good,  and  helps  others  to  he  good,  is  a  star 
on  the  service  flag  of  God,  and  the  one  great  star  of 
all  is  the  star  of  the  life  of  Jesus  Himself.  For 
He  was  the  one  who  served  others  most.  And  He 
has  told  us  that  he  who  would  he  the  ehiefest  must 
be  the  greatest  servant  of  all. 


24 


“  TAKE  A  LITTLE  HONEY  ” 

ONE  of  the  sweetest  stories  in  the  Old 
Testament  is  the  one  about  Joseph  and 
the  love  of  his  father  for  him.  Joseph, 
you  remember,  was  sold  into  Egypt  by  some  of  his 
brothers  who  were  jealous  of  him,  and  for  a  long 
time  he  disappeared  entirely,  and  his  father  thought 
he  was  dead.  But,  meantime,  while  his  father  was 
mourning  for  him,  thinking  that  he  should  never 
see  him  again,  Joseph,  in  wonderful  ways,  had 
risen  to  power  in  Egypt,  and  had  become  the  great¬ 
est  man  in  all  the  land,  next  only  to  the  King 
himself. 

Then  there  came  a  terrible  famine  in  the  land 
where  Jacob  and  his  family  were  living.  For  a 
long  time  there  was  no  rain,  and  everything  dried 
up,  and  nothing  grew,  and  all  the  people  began  to 
be  starved  for  food.  The  news  came  that  down  in 
Egypt  there  was  grain,  and  Jacob  hoped  that  if  he 
should  send  his  sons  down  there,  perhaps  he  could 
buy  some  for  their  need.  So  he  sent  them  down, 
and  the  man  who  received  them,  and  who  had  in 
his  hands  the  power  to  give  food  or  to  keep  it  back, 

was  their  own  brother  J oseph,  though  they  did  not 

100 


“  TAKE  A  LITTLE  HONEY  ” 


101 


know  him.  Joseph  sent  back  word  that  if  they 
ever  wanted  to  come  again  and  buy  food  they  must 
bring  tbeir  youngest  brother  with  them — bis  own 
youngest  brother,  Benjamin,  whom  be  loved  and 
desired  to  see.  So  the  time  did  come  when  they 
bad  to  have  food  again,  and  the  old  father,  Jacob, 
was  wondering  what  be  might  do  to  please  the  great 
man  in  Egypt  (for  neither  be  did  not  know  it  was 
Joseph)  so  that  be  might  be  merciful,  and  be  good 
to  Benjamin,  and  send  them  all  some  food.  He 
told  bis  sons  to  take  presents  with  them,  and  among 
the  presents  was  a  special  one  which  I  am  going 
to  tell  you  about  for  our  sermon  to-day.  He  said, 
“  Take  a  little  honey.” 

Now  Jacob  was  feeling  very  solemn  and  very 
sad.  I  suppose  be  would  not  have  wanted  to  eat 
sweet  things  himself  at  all  at  that  particular  mo¬ 
ment.  He  was  in  no  mood  to  enjoy  a  feast. 
Everything  looked  very  dismal  to  him.  The  son 
he  loved  had  gone  away,  he  thought,  forever;  the 
rest  of  his  sons  were  almost  starving.  Another  of 
his  sons  was  a  prisoner  down  in  Egypt  (for  I  for¬ 
got  to  say  that  when  the  brothers  went  down  into 
Egypt  the  first  time  they  were  compelled  to  leave 
behind  their  brother  Simeon  as  a  pledge  that  what 
they  were  saying  was  true).  If  there  had  been 
anything  that  would  have  expressed  his  feelings, 
it  would  not  have  been  honey,  but  vinegar,  or  sour, 
raw  grapes.  If  he  had  sent  a  present  according  to 
his  feelings,  that  is  the  kind  he  would  have  sent. 


102  “  TAKE  A  LITTLE  HONEY  ” 

But  Jacob  bad  better  sense  than  to  do  anything 
of  the  kind.  He  would  send  to  the  great  man  in 
Egypt  a  present  which  he  thought  would  please  him 
and  put  him  into  a  temper  that  would  make  him 
feel  kindly  disposed.  So  he  sent  spices  and  nuts 
and  almonds,  and  honey,  too.  The  honey  was  not 
only  sweet  to  the  taste,  but  it  suggested  all  pleasant 
things — the  wide  out-of-doors,  and  sunny  fields, 
and  bees,  and  flowers. 

Why  do  you  suppose  it  is  that  so  many  of  us  are 
not  as  sensible  as  Jacob  was?  Sometimes  we  set 
out  to  get  things  for  ourselves,  and  try  to  persuade 
other  people  to  do  what  we  want  them  to  do,  but 
we  do  not  take  a  little  honey  with  us.  We  take 
instead  vinegar  and  thistles,  and  words  that  are 
sour  as  green  persimmons.  Sometimes  you  will  see 
a  boy  who  thinks  that  the  way  to  get  on  among 
other  boys  is  to  talk  loud,  and  be  rough  like  a  bully. 
That  may  seem  to  work  for  a  little  while,  if  he 
is  bigger  than  the  other  boys,  but  it  certainly  will 
not  last  long,  for  everybody  will  begin  to  dislike 
him,  and  wait  for  the  day  when  they  can  get  even 
for  ail  the  meanness  he  has  done  to  them.  Some¬ 
times  you  will  see  a  girl  at  home  who  thinks  that 
the  way  to  get  what  she  wants  from  her  mother  is 
to  whine  and  tease.  And  then,  on  the  other  hand, 
you  will  see  the  boys  and  girls  who  are  sensible 
like  Jacob.  They  know  that  it  is  much  better  to 
go  about  with  sweet  things  than  with  sour  things. 
The  happy  heart  and  the  smiling  face,  and  kind 


“  TAKE  A  LITTLE  HONEY  ” 


108 


thoughts,  and  gentle  words,  are  always  the  way  to 
make  other  hearts  expand  towards  us  and  give  us 
of  their  best. 

And  so  those  words  from  the  Old  Testament  are 
a  good  text  for  us.  In  all  that  we  think,  and  all 
that  we  do,  let  us  “  take  a  little  honey.” 


25 


SETTLING  THE  MUDDY  WATERS 

IN  a  city  I  know,  the  water  which  comes  out 
of  the  faucets  used  to  he  the  worst  looking 
water  you  ever  saw.  It  was  so  full  of  mud 
that  it  was  reddish-brown  and  thick,  and  you  might 
have  thought  it  soup  instead  of  water.  The  reason 
was  that  the  water  came  through  the  reservoir 
straight  from  the  river,  and  the  river  flowed 
through  a  country  where  there  were  many  fields  of 
red  clay,  so  that  whenever  it  rained  the  clay  was 
washed  into  the  streams,  and  the  streams  poured 
it  into  the  river,  and  the  river  was  dark  with  mud. 
When  you  drew  a  glass  full  of  the  water  and  drank 
it,  there  would  be  a  little  layer  of  mud  all  over  the 
glass,  and  if  you  drew  a  basin  full  to  wash  your 
hands  in,  you  could  not  see  the  bottom  of  the 
basin. 

Things  went  on  that  way  for  years  and  years, 
and  at  last  people  began  to  get  tired  of  the  muddy 
water.  They  said,  “  We  must  do  something  about 
it.  We  must  find  some  way  of  getting  the  mud 
out  of  the  water,  so  that  it  will  he  clean  and  clear.” 
So  at  last  they  had  the  city  build  a  thing  like  a 

little  lake,  with  the  sides  and  bottom  made  of 

104 


con- 


SETTLING  THE  MUDDY  WATERS  105 


crete,  which  they  called  a  settling  basin.  It  would 
he  drawn  full  of  water,  just  as  the  water  came  out 
of  the  river,  all  muddy  and  brown.  And  then  the 
water  would  be  kept  there  for  a  time,  and  some¬ 
thing  sprinkled  into  it  which  made  the  particles  of 
mud  settle  down  toward  the  bottom,  while  the  water 
became  clearer  and  clearer,  until  at  last  it  was  al¬ 
most  as  clear  as  the  water  which  comes  out  of  a 
spring.  Then  the  clear  water  would  he  drawn  out 
from  the  top,  and  now  and  then  the  mud  which 
settled  to  the  bottom  of  the  lake  would  be  cleaned 
away.  It  was  a  tremendous  improvement.  Every¬ 
body  now  had  clean  water  to  wash  their  hands  in, 
and  clean  looking  water  to  drink,  instead  of  the 
ugly,  muddy  stuff  of  the  times  before. 

It  was  all  because  of  the  settling  basin  and  the 
way  it  helped  the  water  to  purify  itself. 

When  I  think  of  that  settling  basin,  and  how  it 
cleared  the  water,  I  begin  to  think  how  helpful 
it  would  he  if  we  had  something  like  the  settling 
basin  for  other  things.  There  are  a  great  many 
people  who  are  like  the  reservoirs  in  the  city  jn 
the  days  long  ago.  They  have  things  poured  into 
them  which  are  ugly  and  muddy,  and  they  pour 
them  out  again  just  as  they  came  into  them.  Here 
is  a  boy  who  may  hear  all  sorts  of  vile  talk  among 
the  other  hoys  at  school,  and  to-morrow  he  may 
pass  it  on  to  another  boy,  just  as  it  came  to  him. 
Or  a  little  boy  hears  a  big  boy  curse,  and  he  begins 
to  think  it  is  smart  to  learn  profane,  coarse  words 


106  SETTLING  THE  MUDDY  WATERS 

himself.  What  he  hears  the  big  boys  say,  he  says 
too.  The  stream  of  ugly  talk  which  has  flowed  into 
his  ears  comes  out  again  from  his  lips.  Or,  here 
is  a  girl  who  has  heard  some  mean  gossip  about 
another  girl  whom  perhaps  she  does  not  like  very 
well,  and  about  whom  she  is  willing  to  think  evil. 
She  does  not  stop  to  find  out  whether  the  gossip 
is  true  or  not,  or  whether  it  is  kind  to  tell  it  to 
others,  but  she  passes  it  on  just  as  it  came  to  her. 
Presently  the  boys  and  girls  like  these  grow  up 
into  men  and  women  who  act  in  the  same  wav. 
That,  perhaps,  is  the  reason  why  we  have  among 
grown  people  who  ought  to  know  better,  so  many 
who  speak  profane  and  ugly  language,  and  are  al¬ 
ways  telling  the  ugly,  unkind  stories  which  nobody 
ought  to  like  to  spread. 

How  much  better  it  would  be  if  all  who  are 
tempted  to  pass  on  the  ugly  things  which  they  have 
heard  would  begin  to  get  disgusted  with  that — just 
as  the  city  got  disgusted  with  its  muddy  water. 
Suppose  they  should  say,  “  We  must  have  in  our 
thought  a  sort  of  settling  basin.  We  must  not  sim¬ 
ply  pass  along  all  the  unclean  things  that  come  to 
us.  We  must  stop  and  think  and  consider,  and  ask 
whether  what  we  have  heard  said  is  true,  and 
whether  it  is  a  pleasant,  kindly  thing  to  pass  along. 
We  must  try  to  sift  out  of  it  all  the  mud  and  dirt, 
so  that  whatever  goes  from  us  to  others  will  be 
clean  and  sweet.”  All  of  us  have  seen  people  of 
that  sort.  No  matter  how  much  ugliness  or  un- 


SETTLING  THE  MUDDY  WATERS  107 


kindness  they  may  have  to  hear,  they  do  not  repeat 
it.  Everything  that  comes  to  their  knowledge  is 
purified,  like  the  water  in  the  settling  basin.  We 
can  he  like  them  if  we  try,  and  everybody  will  be 
glad  because  of  what  we  shall  have  done. 


26 


CRANKS,  AND  SELF-STARTERS 

EVERYBODY  can  see  what  this  is  that  I 
have  in  my  hand — -this  awkward,  crooked, 
iron  thing.  It  is  a  crank  which  belongs  to 
an  automobile.  It  is  the  thing  you  have  to  turn  to 
crank  the  engine  with  when  the  engine  will  not 
start  in  any  other  way. 

The  other  day  I  was  trying  to  crank  an  auto¬ 
mobile,  and  all  of  a  sudden  there  was  an  ugly  flare- 
back  of  the  engine,  and  this  crank  flew  through 
the  air,  and  caught  the  hack  of  my  hand  and 
knocked  the  skin  off  and  made  it  bleed,  and  only 
by  good  luck  did  not  break  the  bones.  Cranking 
an  engine  which  does  like  that  is  not  a  pleasant 
thing,  and  may  be  dangerous. 

Usually,  you  know,  an  automobile  ought  not  to 
have  to  be  cranked  at  all.  It  is  supposed  to  have 
a  self-starter.  That  is  a  contrivance  which  works 
by  electricity,  and  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  push 
a  button  on  the  floor  of  the  car  with  your  foot, 
and  the  electric  starter  flashes  into  action,  and 
turns  the  engine  for  you,  and  the  automobile  is 
ready  to  run.  But  sometimes  the  self-starter  gets 
out  of  order,' and  then  the  only  way  you  can  start 

the  engine  is  with  a  crank. 

108 


CRANKS,  AND  SELF-STARTERS  109 

Now  there  are  a  great  many  people  in  this  world 
who  are  like  the  automobile  when  the  self-starter 
is  out  of  order.  They  will  not  begin  anything  for 
themselves.  They  are  indifferent  and  lazy.  Un¬ 
less  somebody  else  comes  along  to  make  them  go, 
and  to  crank  them  up  by  main  force,  they  might 
just  stay  where  they  are  and  be  just  what  they  are 
forever. 

I  know  some  boys  and  girls  who  have  lost  their 
self-starter  about  getting  up  in  the  morning.  Left 
to  themselves  they  would  stay  and  sleep  until  no¬ 
body  knows  when.  It  seems  they  have  not  even 
energy  enough  to  wake  up  and  begin  to  live.  Some¬ 
body  must  go  and  call  them,  and  probably  after 
a  while  go  back  and  call  them  again.  And  maybe 
even  then  they  are  late,  or  get  up  with  a  whine  as 
though  someone  had  done  them  an  injury. 

And  then  there  are  people  in  church,  and  in 
every  other  good  company,  who  will  never  start 
anything  fine  themselves.  They  always  wait  for 
somebody  else  to  suggest  the  happy,  active  thing 
to  do.  They  would  rather  do  nothing  and  let 
everything  stay  as  it  is.  They  do  not  want  to 
bother  to  take  any  trouble  with  new  ways  in  the 
Sunday  School,  or  new  ideas  to  put  life  and  glad¬ 
ness  in  the  Church.  Sometimes  if  someone  else 
tries  to  start  up  the  engine  of  their  help  they  will 
flash  out  with  a  backfire  of  ugly  temper,  like  the 
backfiring  of  an  automobile,  which  hurts  the  one 
who  tried  to  help  them.  People  who  have  to  be 


110  CRANKS,  AND  SELF-STARTERS 


cranked  up  like  this  just  are  cranks  and  nothing 
more. 

But  the  fine  thing  is  that  none  of  us  have  to  be 
cranky  people  if  we  do  not  want  to.  All  we  need 
to  do  is  to  keep  our  own  self-starter  in  order. 
There  is  a  beautiful  word,  “  enthusiasm,”  which 
describes  something  that  every  one  of  us  ought  to 
have.  And  do  you  know  what  enthusiasm  means? 
It  came  into  our  language  long,  long  ago  from  the 
Greek,  and  it  is  made  up  out  of  two  Greek  words, 
one  of  which  means  “  God,”  and  the  other  of  which 
means  “  in.”  The  enthusiastic  person  is  the  per¬ 
son  who  has  God  in  him.  And  if  we  do  let  the 
thought  of  God,  and  of  all  His  fine,  glad  purpose 
for  us,  fill  our  minds  and  hearts,  then  in  very  gen¬ 
uineness  we  are  “  enthusiastic.”  Boys  and  girls 
who  are  enthusiastic  in  this  real  sense  have  the  best 
of  ail  self-starters  in  their  minds  and  hearts.  They 
will  be  quick  to  go  ahead  in  every  happy,  whole¬ 
some  thing. 


/ 


27 

HOUSES,  AND  MULES,  AND  PEOPLE 

THE  Bible  is  a  wonderful  book.  It  tells  us 
of  things  that  we  ought  to  do,  and  of 
things  that  we  ought  not  to  do,  and  of 
what  we  ought  to  be,  and  of  what  we  ought  not 
to  be.  To-day  I  am  going  to  tell  you  about  some¬ 
thing  which  an  old,  old  writer  of  long  ago  has  writ¬ 
ten  down  for  us  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs.  It  is 
something  which  out  of  his  experience  he  said  that 
people  ought  not  to  be.  And  this  is  what  it  is  : 
“  Be  ye  not  as  the  horse  or  as  the  mule.” 

I  expect  that  the  somebody  who  wrote  that  old 
proverb  so  long  ago  had  had  a  bad  time  with  a 
mule.  He  was  speaking  out  of  his  recollection  of 
something  which  had  happened  straight  to  him. 
Perhaps  his  mule  had  kicked  him,  or  had  balked 
in  the  road  some  day  when  he  was  driving  off  to 
see  his  sweetheart.  He  never  liked  mules  from 
that  day  on,  and  he  gave  them  a  bad  name  which 
lasts  clear  down  to  our  time. 

Perhaps  it  would  be  a  good  thing  for  boys  and 
girls  to-day  to  take  his  advice.  Be  ye  not  like  a 
mule.  The  first  way  in  which  we  are  tempted  to 

be  like  a  mule  is  to  be  bad-tempered,  and  kick  out 

ill 


112  HORSES,  AND  MULES,  AND  PEOPLE 


at  someone, — even,  it  may  be,  at  some  one  who  is 
trying  to  help  ns.  Haven’t  yon  seen  boys  and  girls 
sometimes  wbo  are  just  like  a  fractious  mule? 
Perhaps  they  are  being  dressed  in  the  morning,  or 
are  putting  on  their  best  clothes  to  go  to  a  party. 
They  think  something  is  too  tight,  or  the  collar  hurts 
them  around  the  neck,  and  though  their  mother 
may  be  helping  them  to  get  ready  for  something 
which  they  are  the  ones  who  will  enjoy,  they  slash 
out  with  some  bad-tempered  word,  and  frown  and 
cry  like  a  mule  who  kicks  when  he  is  being  har¬ 
nessed. 

And  then  there  are  the  boys  and  girls  who  balk. 
They  may  be  starting  out  on  something  that  ought 
to  be  a  happy  adventure,  but  right  in  the  middle 
of  it  they  conclude  they  will  not  go  any  further. 
They  sulk  and  do  not  want  to  play.  They  stick 
out  their  lips  and  say,  “  I  won’t !  ” 

Then  there  is  a  third  thing  about  the  mule,  and 
the  horse,  too,  in  which  boys  and  girls  ought  to  sur¬ 
pass  them.  You  cannot  send  a  horse  or  a  mule 
out  alone  to  do  what  you  want  to  have  done.  You 
hitch  him  up  to  a  wagon  filled  with  groceries,  for 
example,  but  you  cannot  give  him  a  list  of  all  the 
houses  where  you  want  the  groceries  delivered,  and 
tell  him  just  to  go  around  to  every  one.  You  must 
send  a  man  along  to  show  him  the  way  and  to  drive 
him  from  place  to  place. 

Sometimes  people  are  like  that.  They  will  go  if 
somebody  else  holds  the  reins,  and  touches  them 


HORSES,  AND  MULES,  AND  PEOPLE  113 


with  the  whip  now  and  then.  They  will  be  good  if 
somebody  else  keeps  them  from  doing  wrong.  They 
will  keep  in  the  straight  road  if  somebody  holds  the 
tight  rein  on  them  so  that  they  cannot  turn  the  cor¬ 
ners  into  evil.  But  though  that  may  be  enough  for 
a  horse  and  a  mule,  surely  it  is  not  enough  for  boys 
and  girls  whom  God  has  made.  We  must  think  so 
much  about  His  ways  for  us,  and  grow  to  love  them 
so  much,  that  we  will  go  in  the  right  paths  of  our 
own  accord.  We  must  be  intelligent  and  depend¬ 
able  Christians  who  will  not  need  anyone  else  to 
watch  us,  but  can  be  trusted  all*  alone. 


28 


HITTING  THE  MARK 

IN  many  places  a  while  ago  there  was  put  up  a 
beautiful,  big  poster  as  a  part  of  an  invita¬ 
tion  to  men  to  come  and  join  the  navy.  It  is 
a  picture  in  colours  of  a  great  battleship,  steaming 
through  the  ocean,  with  the  white  foam  rushing 
past  its  bows.  It  is  steaming  straight  into  battle, 
with  black  smoke  pouring  from  its  funnels,  and  the 
great  guns  spouting  fire  on  every  side.  And  un¬ 
derneath  the  poster  are  these  words : 

“Hit  the  Mark  !  ” 


lhat  is  a  good  motto  for  the  navy,  but  it  is  also 
a  good  motto  for  all  of  us  who  may  never  expect 
to  be  in  the  navy  at  all.  There  are  ways  in  which 
every  one  of  us — boys  and  girls  and  men  and 
women  must  hit  the  mark.  W e  have  got  some¬ 
thing  to  shoot  at,  and  we  want  to  shoot  with  good 
effect. 

The  battleship  steaming  into  action  had  its  par¬ 
ticular  mark  that  it  must  hit.  It  was  the  battle¬ 
ship  of  the  enemy  which  it  must  destroy,  or  else  it 
would  be  destroyed  itself.  We  also  have  our 

enemies.  They  are  not  made  of  iron  and  steel,  but 

114 


HITTING  THE  MARK 


115 


they  are  made  of  even  tougher  stuff.  Our  enemies 
are  the  sins  which  we  must  overcome. 

Now  if  we  would  fight  our  sins  and  destroy  them, 
the  first  thing  that  we  must  know  is  just  what  it  is 
that  we  are  aiming  at.  We  cannot  hit  the  mark 
until  we  know  what  mark  we  want  to  hit.  So  the 
first  thing  for  each  one  of  us  to  ask  himself  is  this: 
What  is  the  special  sin  that  I  need  to  be  on  the  look¬ 
out  for,  and  that  I  must  blow  to  pieces  before  it 
comes  near  and  ruins  me?  It  may  be  some  great, 
plain  sin  like  a  violent  bad  temper.  It  may  be 
some  little  sneaking  submarine  sin  like  a  lie,  or  the 
vile  thought  which  tries  to  creep  into  the  mind  and 
make  it  all  unclean.  The  sins  which  people  must 
look  out  for  are  different  for  different  people, 
and  what  each  one  of  us  wants  to  be  sure  of  is  that 
we  know  which  are  our  particular  ones.  Then  the 
guns  of  our  good  intentions  will  not  be  shooting 
wild. 

In  the  second  place,  if  the  battleship  is  going  to 
hit  the  mark,  it  must  keep  its  guns  clean,  and  in 
good  condition.  Nobody  ever  heard  of  a  battleship 
that  would  allow  the  guns  to  fill  with  rain  and  salt 
spray  and  get  all  rusty  inside,  nor  have  dirt  sift 
into  those  fine,  steel  muzzles  and  clog  up  the  ma¬ 
chinery  of  the  guns.  Constantly  the  guns  are  gone 
over  and  kept  free  from  everything  that  might  hurt 
their  perfect  shooting.  And  in  just  that  same  way 
you  and  I,  if  we  are  to  hit  the  mark  of  our  sins, 
must  keep  the  guns  of  conscience  clean.  We  can- 


116 


HITTING  THE  MARK 


not  let  onr  conscience  grow  rusty  from  neglect. 
We  cannot  let  it  fill  up  with  the  dust  of  careless 
and  common  thoughts.  If  we  find  that  something 
is  making  a  little  speck  of  dirt  upon  our  conscience, 
we  must  see  that  it  is  quickly  taken  off,  for  a  very 
little  speck  may  spoil  the  aim. 

In  the  third  place,  the  battleship,  in  order  to  he 
sure  that  it  will  hit  its  mark,  must  keep  in  practice. 
Day  by  day  the  gun  crews  are  trained  in  long,  care¬ 
ful  drills.  Every  once  in  a  while  the  battleship 
will  go  off  into  the  big,  wide  ocean,  and  for  days 
it  will  practice  shooting  at  targets.  No  matter  how 
skillful  a  gunner  may  be,  he  cannot  keep  his  skill 
unless  he  keeps  in  practice. 

So  you  and  I,  if  we  would  be  skillful  in  destroy¬ 
ing  the  sins  which  come  and  threaten  us,  must 
never  stop  learning  how  to  handle  the  guns  of  con¬ 
science  right.  We  may  not  destroy  the  first  time 
some  sin  which  we  are  aiming  at,  but  every  time  we 
truly  and  honestly  try  to  beat  it  away  we  shall  come 
a  little  closer  to  destroying  it.  And  then  some  day 
we  may  strike  that  sin  fair  and  square,  and  it  will 
go  to  pieces  like  a  ship  hit  by  a  shell,  and  will  sink 
out  of  sight  and  threaten  us  no  more. 

So,  to  sum  it  up,  remember  again  the  three  things 
which  we  learn  from  the  battleship. 

Know  what  we  are  shooting  at. 

Keep  the  guns  of  conscience  clean. 

Keep  in  practice. 

And  then,  at  the  end,  we  shall 
HIT  THE  MARK. 


29 


PLAYING  A  MAN’S  GAME 

HERE  and  there  on  the  streets  of  the  cities, 
yon  may  see  a  big  poster  printed  in  brown 
and  green  and  red.  At  the  top,  it  has  a 
picture  of  the  globe  with  the  continents  on  it,  such 
as  you  see  in  the  geographies,  and  over  the  globe 
an  eagle,  and  underneath  it  an  anchor.  Then  at 
the  bottom  of  the  poster  are  these  words: 

“  Wherever  this  device  is  worn. 

Ashore  or  afloat, 

United  States  Marines, 

PLAY  A  MAN’S  GAME.” 

The  marines  are  the  ones  who  are  like  soldiers, 
and  like  sailors,  too.  They  carry  rifles,  and  they 
drill,  and  they  fight  in  battles  on  the  land  like  sol¬ 
diers,  and  yet  they  go  in  companies  on  the  big  bat¬ 
tleships  of  the  Navy  wherever  the  battleships  sail. 
If  anything  happens,  they  are  usually  the  first  of 
the  fighting  forces  to  go  ashore.  They  are  soldiers- 
on-board-ships,  ready  for  service  in  every  part  of 
the  earth.  Wherever  you  see  a  marine,  you  will 
see  that  he  wears  the  marks  which  were  printed  on 
the  poster.  He  will  have  them  on  the  front  of  his 

cap,  or  on  the  collar  of  his  coat,  like  a  tiny  little 

117 


118 


PLAYING  A  MAN’S  GAME 


ornament  in  silver  or  bronze.  The  globe  represents 
the  whole,  round  world — to  any  part  of  which  the 
marine  may  be  going.  And  the  eagle,  perhaps, 
stands  for  the  spirit  of  service  to  America  which 
may  carry  the  marine  everywhere,  and  the  anchor 
represents  the  ocean  and  the  ships.  “  Wherever 
this  device  is  worn,”  says  the  poster,  “  ashore  or 
afloat,  United  States  Marines  play  a  man’s  game.” 

That  is  a  fine,  proud,  thing  to  be  able  to  say. 
The  marines  have  a  high  record  and  they  expect 
everybody  who  comes  into  the  marines  to  live  up 
to  it.  Over  in  the  Great  War  in  Prance,  at  a  time 
when  the  Germans  had  almost  broken  through  to 
Paris,  and  it  looked  as  though  they  were  about  to 
bring  the  war  to  an  end,  it  was  the  marines  who, 
with  other  troops  from  American  divisions,  held 
the  roads  and  braced  the  fighting  lines,  and  turned 
the  Germans  back.  In  a  place  called  Belleau 
Wood,  a  dangerous  thick  tangle  of  trees  and  un¬ 
dergrowth,  full  of  barbed  wire  and  German  ma¬ 
chine  guns,  the  marines  won  a  gallant  victory. 
People  think  of  Belleau  Wood  to  this  day,  when 
they  remember  the  heroic  achievements  in  the  war. 
There,  and  at  every  place  the  marines  may  go,  their 
motto  is  that  they  “  play  a  man’s  game.” 

There  are  other  sorts  of  games  which  people  can 
play,  and  sometimes  do  play.  There  is  the  game 
of  the  coward  and  the  slacker.  The  time  comes 
when  the  country  is  in  danger,  and  some  go  out 
to  serve  her,  and  some  stay  at  home  and  make  ex- 


PLAYING  A  MAN’S  GAME 


119 


cuses  to  get  out  of  service  because  they  are  afraid, 
or  because  they  think  it  will  be  a  good  chance  to 
make  money,  while  others  are  doing  the  hard  thing. 
These  can  never  say,  as  in  the  words  of  the  poster, 
that  they  played  a  real  “  man’s  game.” 

Then,  there  is  what  the  boys  might  call  a 
squealer’s  game.  Some  may  begin  to  play  this  who 
are  not  slackers  or  cowards.  They  start  to  do  the 
hard  thing,  but  they  do  not  keep  their  courage  up. 
They  complain  over  every  little  inconvenience. 
They  sulk  and  grouch.  They  may  play  the  game 
in  a  half-hearted  sort  of  fashion,  but  they  do  not 
play  it  courageously  and  cheerfully,  and  in  the 
spirit  to  help  every  one  play  it  better. 

There  is  a  fine  story  which  a  poet  has  written 
into  a  poem.  He  called  it  “  Opportunity.”  A 
battle  was  raging  and  a  soldier  slunk  along  the 
edge  of  it.  He  had  a  sword  in  his  hand,  but  he 
complained  to  himself  because  it  was  not  a  better 
one.  “  If  only  I  had  a  sword  like  the  King’s  son’s 
sword,”  he  said,  u  I  could  fight  well ;  but  this  mean 
thing  is  not  worth  fighting  with.”  So  he  broke  it 
in  two,  and  threw  it  down,  and  stole  away.  Then, 
presently,  the  King’s  son  came,  driven  back  by  the 
enemy- — wounded  and  sorely  beset,  and  with  his 
own  sword  struck  from  his  hand  by  a  blow.  Then, 
of  a  sudden,  he  saw  the  broken  sword  the  soldier 
had  flung  away,  and  he  ran  and  snatched  it  up, 
and  with  that  broken  half  of  a  coward’s  sword,  he 
went  back  into  the  battle  and  drove  his  enemies 


120 


PLAYING  A  MAN’S  GAME 


before  him,  and  won  his  victory.  That  was  the 
difference  between  the  squealer  and  the  one  who 
could  “  play  a  man’s  game.” 

To  play  a  man’s  game  is  a  big,  fine  thing,  and 
it  means  a  lot.  It  means  to  be  as  swift  as  an  eagle 
to  see  the  fine  service  which  somebody  ought  to  do, 
and  to  go  and  do  it.  It  means  to  have  a  courage 
and  daring  as  wide  as  the  whole  round  world.  It 
means  to  be  dependable  everywhere,  by  land  or  sea, 
in  sun  or  storm. 

I  told  you  what  the  device  is  that  the  marines 
wear,  and  it  is  a  beautiful  one.  But  if  you  stop 
to  remember,  we,  everyone  of  us,  wear  a  device, 
which  is  a  simpler  one,  but  more  wonderful  still. 
We  cannot  see  it  with  our  eyes,  but  it  is  here,  on 
our  foreheads.  It  is  the  cross  which  was  put  there 
with  the  water  when  we  were  baptized.  It  is  the 
device  of  the  soldiers  of  Jesus.  And  do  you  not 
think  the  soldiers  of  Jesus,  boys  and  girls,  and  men 
and  women,  and  all,  ought  to  be  able  to  speak  as 
proudly  for  themselves  as  the  marines  can  speak? 
We  must  not  be  cowards  and  slackers  in  the  things 
that  the  Christian  ought  to  fight  for  every  day. 
We  must  be  quick  to  put  down  meanness,  and  false¬ 
hood,  and  cruelty.  We  must  not  be  squealers  who 
complain  when  the  things  which  we  are  asked  to  do 
for  others,  and  which  a  good  soldier  of  J esus  would 
be  quick  and  glad  to  do,  are  inconvenient  things. 
We  must  make  it  true  of  us,  that  everywhere  and 
always,  we  “  play  a  man’s  game.” 


30 


PILLARS  OF  THE  TEMPLE 

SOMETIMES  you  go  into  a  great  church, 
and  among  the  things  that  you  notice  first 
will  be  the  pillars.  Perhaps  some  day  you 
may  take  a  trip  across  the  seas  and  go  into  the  vast 
cathedrals  in  the  countries  of  the  old  world.  Or 
you  will  go  into  the  newer  cathedrals  which  are 
building  here  in  our  own  land,  like  the  one  on 
Momingside  Heights,  in  the  city  of  Hew  York. 
There  they  stand,  great,  glorious  columns  of  stone, 
holding  up  the  vaulted  roof  and  the  mighty  arches 
which  soar  so  high  above  your  head.  Or  you  may 
go  into  some  sweet  old  church  which  belongs  in 
the  very  town  you  know  best,  with  the  high  white 
columns  which  hold  up  its  porch,  or  lofty  pillars 
that  stand  behind  the  pulpit  and  support  the  roof 
of  the  chancel  to  which  you  look  up  as  you  sit  in 
the  pews. 

There  is  a  sermon  in  the  pillars.  In  the  Book 
of  Revelation  it  is  said,  “  Him  that  overcometh  will 
I  make  a  pillar  in  the  temple  of  my  God.”  That 
was  the  promise  of  one  of  the  angels  of  God,  and 

it  means  that  whoever  is  faithful,  and  constant,  and 

121 


122 


PILLARS  OF  THE  TEMPLE 


true,  will  be  like  one  of  tbe  beautiful  pillars  chat 
bold  up  tbe  temple  of  God. 

Wbat  are  tbe  things  we  must  remember  about 
tbe  pillars  if  we  would  be  like  them  ? 

First  of  all,  tbe  pillar  must  be  straight.  If  tbe 
masons  who  lay  tbe  stones  of  the  pillars  in  tbe  vast 
cathedrals  cut  them  carelessly,  or  set  them  so  that 
they  are  out  of  plumb,  or  if  tbe  builders  make  pil¬ 
lars  of  wood  that  is  warped,  then  tbe  roof  which 
they  are  supposed  to  bold  up  is  not  secure.  A 
crooked  pillar  is  never  safe.  Some  day  tbe  weight 
upon  it  may  twist  and  bend  it  more,  and  tbe  temple 
of  God,  which  it  was  meant  to  bold  up,  may  come 
crashing  down  in  ruin.  In  a  church  I  know  of, 
not  long  ago,  an  architect  was  asked  to  examine  it 
all  to  make  sure  that  everything  was  safe.  In  bis 
report  came  back  tbe  message  that  a  certain  pillar 
which  be  pointed  out  was  warped.  “  It  is  better 
to  take  it  out,”  be  said,  “  and  put  a  new  one  there. 
It  is  possible  that  nothing  might  happen,  but  then 
it  is  never  safe  to  trust  to  a  pillar  that  is  not 
straight.” 

And  what  do  you  suppose  God’s  angels  who  build 
the  temple  of  His  presence  in  the  midst  of  life  must 
say  about  the  boy  or  girl  who  is  not  straight  ? 
What  of  the  one  who  will  not  tell  the  truth  for  fear 
of  punishment?  What  of  the  one  who  will  do 
something  behind  another’s  back  that  he  would  not 
do  if  he  thought  anyone  were  looking?  What  of 
the  one  who  does  not  play  straight  in  a  game? 


PILLARS  OF  THE  TEMPLE 


123 


Such  as  these  cannot  keep  their  places  in  the  temple 
of  God.  The  holy  influences  are  not  helped  by 
them.  The  true,  the  honest,  the  dependable — these 
are  the  boys  and  girls  who  will  be  the  pillars  in 
the  temple  of  God. 

Then,  in  the  second  place,  the  pillar  must  be 
sound  all  through.  Suppose  for  the  stone  columns 
which  hold  up  the  glorious  arches  of  the  cathedral, 
the  builders  had  put  only  a  shell  of  stone  and  filled 
the  center  with  crumbling  sand  and  mortar  and 
rubble  of  broken  rock.  From  without,  the  pillars 
might  look  sound  enough.  So  far  as  you  might 
see,  they  appear  all  safe  and  strong.  But  if  you 
knew  how  hollow  and  cheap  they  really  were,  you 
would  be  afraid.  You  would  know  that  they  were 
neither  safe  nor  worthy  of  anything  built  for  the 
glory  of  God. 

So  with  us  also  it  is  not  merely  the  outside  that 
counts.  There  are  some  boys  and  girls  who  seem 
respectable  enough.  They  have  good  manners  and 
a  pleasant,  plausible  way  about  them.  But  when 
you  look  deeper  you  find  that  their  hearts  are  not 
sound.  They  are  filled  with  common,  cheap  de¬ 
sires.  There  is  no  real  principle  which  runs 
through  and  through  them.  If  any  big  pressure 
came  upon  them  you  could  not  be  sure  that  they 
would  stand  firmly  up.  To  be  built  into  the  temple 
of  God  we  must  be  solid  through  and  through.  We 
must  try  to  make  everything  inside  of  us  as  true 
and  real  as  we  should  want  to  seem. 


124 


PILLARS  OF  THE  TEMPLE 


Then,  in  the  third  place,  after  a  pillar  has  been 
made  straight  and  sound,  to  be  'worthy  of  God’s 
temple  it  ought  also  to  be  beautiful.  The  appear¬ 
ance  of  it  is  not  the  only  thing  that  counts,  but  that 
does  count,  too.  In  glorious  churches,  such  as  the 
old  cathedrals,  the  pillars  may  be  carved  into  the 
most  loving  and  wonderful  beauty.  Out  of  the 
stone  the  artist  may  chisel  the  most  delicate  things 
— flowers  and  leaves  and  exquisite  patterns,  until 
the  pillar  is  a  thing  upon  which  to  feast  one’s 
eyes. 

And  that  also  is  true  of  the  pillars  of  souls 
which  are  to  hold  up  the  temple  of  God.  “  0  wor¬ 
ship  the  Lord  in  the  beauty  of  holiness !  ”,  says  one 
of  the  psalms.  There  are  a  great  many  people  who 
are  righteous,  but  they  are  not  beautiful.  They 
are  awkward  and  clumsy  in  their  would-be  good¬ 
ness.  They  say  such  stupid  things,  and  they  carry 
out  their  conscientious  ideas  in  such  dull  and 
grumpy  spirit  that  nobody  has  pleasure  in  their 
sort  of  goodness.  They  are  like  pillars  which  are 
honest  enough  in  the  way  they  are  built  to  hold  up 
the  roof,  but  are  so  jagged  and  rough  that  everyone 
thinks  what  a  pity  it  is  that  anything  so  unat¬ 
tractive  had  to  be  in  the  temple.  Just  as  the  ut¬ 
most  beauty  which  the  patience  of  the  carver  can 
create  has  its  place  on  the  pillars  of  the  cathedrals, 
so  the  utmost  beauty  that  our  own  best  spirit  can 
give  to  our  lives  and  our  behaviour  is  needed  in  the 
temple  of  God.  We  must  try  to  make  our  good- 


PILLARS  OP  THE  TEMPLE  125 

I 

ness  so  glad  and  so  gracious,  so  bright-tempered  and 
so  winsome,  that  others  will  want  to  come  into  the 
temple  of  the  presence  of  God  because  it  is  so  beau¬ 
tiful  to  be  there. 


31 


“  EIGHT  SIDE1  UP  WITH  CAEE  ” 

ONE  morning,  just  as  I  was  going  into 
church  to  begin  the  service,  and  presently 
to  preach  the  children’s  sermon,  one  of 
the  men  who  is  an  officer  in  the  Sunday  School 
came  in  to  speak  to  me,  and  I  said,  u  Hello,  how 
are  you  this  morning,  and  how  is  everybody  at  your 
house  ?  ” 

He  said,  “  Well,  they  have  all  had  colds,  and 
have  been  sick,  hut  I  am  all  right.  I  have  been 
keeping  myself  right  side  up  with  care.” 

And  all  of  a  sudden  I  thought  to  myself,  that  is 
a  good  text  for  a  children’s  sermon. 

You  know  what  u  Eight  Side  Up  With  Care  ” 
means.  If  you  go  into  a  freight  office  where  big 
boxes  are  being  shipped  on  the  railroad  you  may 
see  a  great  many  of  them  marked  with  those 
words — “  Eight  Side  Up  With  Care.” 

It  means  that  you  must  not  throw  them  about, 
nor  turn  them  upside  down.  Perhaps  they  may 
he  filled  with  very  delicate  things,  like  china,  for 
example;  and  the  man  who  has  packed  the  box  has 
put  the  heavier  pieces  at  the  bottom,  and  the  lighter 

and  more  fragile  pieces  at  the  top.  And  if  the 

126 


u  RIGHT  SIDE  UP  WITH  CARE ” 


127 


box  were  turned  wrong  side  up,  the  heavier  pieces 
would  come  crushing  down  on  the  delicate  ones  and 
mash  them  by  the  time  the  box  had  got  to  its  jour¬ 
ney’s  end.  And  so  he  paints  on  the  top  of  the 
case,  u  Right  Side  Up  With  Care/’  so  that  every¬ 
body  who  handles  the  box  will  be  sure  not  to  get 
it  upside  down. 

And  in  that  same  way  we  need  to  keep  ourselves 
cc  Right  Side  Up  With  Care.”  We  need  to  do  it/ 
first  of  all,  in  our  health.  If  a  boy  and  girl  for¬ 
get  to  take  care  of  themselves,  and  run  out  into  the 
rain  and  mud  with  no  rubbers  on,  and  get  their 
feet  wet,  or  stand  in  a  cold  draught  when  they  have 
been  playing  hard  and  are  very  overheated,  then 
presently  they  will  not  be  “  Right  Side  Up  ”  at  all. 
They  will  be  down  in  bed  somewhere,  groaning 
mightily  because  they  feel  so  sick.  Little  wiggly 
bugs  of  grippe,  or  some  other  sickness,  will  be 
dancing  through  their  blood.  The  fever  will  be 
beating  in  their  heads  like  hot  hammers.  The 
wrong  things  entirely  will  have  got  uppermost,  and 
all  their  usual  helpful  and  cheerful  selves  will  be 
very  down  and  very  doleful. 

Then,  as  in  our  bodies,  we  must  keep  the  healthy 
side  up,  so  we  must  do  the  same  with  our  spirits. 
Sometimes  people  forget  and  let  evil  get  the  upper 
hand.  Some  temptation  comes  along,  and  that 
temptation  gets  a  grip  upon  them  and  beats  them 
down.  A  bad  habit  of  impurity,  or  ugly  temper, 
or  dishonesty,  lays  hold  of  them  and  becomes  the 


128  “  RIGHT  SIDE  UP  WITH  CARE ” 


master.  Then  what  we  want  to  remember  is  the 
good,  wholesome  message  of  those  words — “  Right 
Side  Up  With  Care.” 

Which  is  the  right  side  of  us?  It  is  the  kind 
side,  the  brave  side,  the  side  which  thinks  the 
thoughts  and  does  the  deeds  of  Jesus.  It  takes  a 
fight  sometimes  to  keep  the  right  side  up.  St.  Paul 
said  it  was  just  like  a  man  who  must  be  continually 
wrestling,  and  he  said  that  he  himself  had  to  do 
that.  “  I  keep  my  body  under,  and  bring  it  into 
subjection.”  He  meant  that  he  put  all  selfish  appe¬ 
tites,  and  laziness,  and  cowardice,  down  at  the  bot¬ 
tom,  and  unselfishness  and  service  for  others  on  top. 
He  kept  himself,  as  we  must  do,  “  Right  Side  Up 
With  Care  ” — the  good  side,  the  God  side,  up,  and 
everything  else  underneath. 


32 


SHIPS  OF  HOPE 

ONE  day  a  little  while  ago  when  I  was 
riding  in  a  trolley  car  in  a  city,  I  looked 
np — and  there  I  saw  a  sermon.  It  was 
just  above  the  windows,  in  the  long,  bright-coloured 
row  of  advertising  signs.  Perhaps  it  was  not  meant 
to  be  a  sermon,  hut  nevertheless  there  the  sermon 
was.  On  the  corner  of  this  card,  in  the  midst  of 
the  other  advertising  cards,  there  was  a  picture 
so  pretty  that  I  wish  I  could  have  it  printed  in  this 
book,  with  its  colours  and  all, — a  picture  of  a  ship 
ploughing  its  way  through  the  ocean,  and  ahead 
of  it  the  great  white  clouds  piled  up  by  the  wind 
like  castles  in  the  blue  sky.  It  was  not  such  a  ship 
as  we  see  nowadays,  but  the  sort  such  as  the  Span¬ 
iards  and  the  English  sailed  in  long  ago  when 
America  was  first  discovered  and  the  old  explorers 
used  to  go  out  into  seas  where  no  one  had  ever 
sailed  before.  It  was  not  gray  and  plain  like  the 
ocean  liners  are;  but  it  had  a  great  high  stern,  all 
carved  in  wood,  with  a  shield  upon  it,  and  masts 
with  widespread  sails  of  crimson  and  gold.  It  was 
very  good  to  look  at,  and  it  made  you  think  of  the 

wonderful  days  when  Christopher  Columbus,  and 

129 


130 


SHIPS  OF  HOPE 


Cabot,  and  Sir  Walter  Ealeigh  and  Sir  Francis 
Drake  and  the  other  great  sailors  and  sea  captains 
put  to  sea  in  vessels  just  like  that  to  find  the  gold 
of  the  Indies,  and  islands  with  palms  and  brilliant- 
coloured  birds,  and  all  the  strange,  new  treasures 
which  they  were  sure  must  be  in  the  countries  which 
were  waiting  for  some  bold  ship  to  find. 

“  The  Ship  of  Your  Hopes” — these  were  the 
first  words  which  were  printed  on  the  card  beside 
the  picture.  “  Ships  of  Hope  ”  were  the  ships  which 
men  used  to  sail  in  long  ago,  when  they  launched 
out,  so  bold  and  eager,  to  see  what  the  distant  seas 
might  hold.  And  every  ship  that  ever  sails  is  a 
ship  of  hope.  The  reason  it  sails  at  all  is  because 
some  person — or  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  persons 
— want  something  which  they  cannot  get  except 
through  the  sailing  of  the  ship  and  they  hope  the 
ship  will  gain  it  for  them.  They  want  to  go  to  the 
harbour  far  off,  perhaps  on  the  other  side  of  the 
world  to  which  the  ship  is  pointed.  They  want  to 
get  something  which  the  ship  will  bring  back  from 
that  other  land.  Or  they  want  to  see  someone  they 
love  to  whom  the  ship  will  carry  them.  And  so 
for  many  and  many  a  reason  every  ship  that  sails 
has  a  great  company  of  people  who  are  thinking  of 
all  the  things  they  want  the  ship  to  do,  and  they 
will  be  praying  that  it  may  have  a  safe  voyage  all 
the  way ;  for  it  is  the  Ship  of  their  Hopes. 

And  what  a  sad  thing  it  is  when  the  Ships  of 
Hope  never  come  back!  In  the  olden  days,  that 


SHIPS  OF  HOPE 


131 


would  be  true  oftener  than  it  is  true  now.  Out 
from  the  harbour  mouth  the  ship  would  go,  with 
the  great  sails  spread,  and  the  pennons  snapping  in 
the  ocean  breeze,  and  the  white  foam  curling  at  her 
bow — and  on  the  shore  the  people  cheering.  And 
then  perhaps  it  would  never  be  heard  of  any  more. 
Some  black  pirate  craft  might  capture  it  and  carry 
it  off  among  the  tangled  islands.  Or  it  would  go 
down  in  the  deep,  black  water,  driven  and  broken 
before  a  storm.  Or  it  would  run  upon  a  hidden 
rock  and  lie  there  helpless,  with  sails  and  pennons 
drooping,  while  the  breakers  ground  it  to  pieces  day 
by  day.  In  vain  the  people  in  the  harbour  would 
watch  for  its  coming  home,  for  never  again  would 
it  return. 

But  there  are  more  Ships  of  Hope  than  sail  upon 
the  ocean.  The  heart  of  every  boy  and  girl,  and 
of  every  man  and  woman,  has  its  Ships  of  Hope. 
Each  hope  itself  is  like  a  ship  that  sails  out  upon 
its  way,  and  leaves  us  waiting  and  watching  to  see 
what  it  may  bring  back.  Here  is  someone  whose 
hope  is  to  be  successful  in  business  and  be  pros¬ 
perous.  It  is  a  good  hope,  if  it  is  not  a  selfish 
one.  A  lad  starts  out  to  make  his  own  living  and 
he  tries  to  make  money,  and  to  save  it,  so  that  he 
will  not  be  dependent  upon  someone  else.  A  man 
works  hard  and  tries  to  gain  more  than  he  spends, 
so  that  if  anything  should  happen  to  him,  there 
would  be  enough  saved  up  for  his  wife  and  children 
to  live  upon.  Every  business  venture  he  makes  is 


132 


SHIPS  OF  HOPE 


like  a  ship  of  hope,  which  he  launches  in  the  trust 
that  it  will  come  back  to  him  freighted  with  reward. 
This  is  the  sort  of  ship  of  hope  that  was  meant  by 
the  advertising  card  I  saw,  for  it  was  the  adver¬ 
tisement  of  a  hank.  “  The  Ship  of  Your  Hopes — 
who  will  bring  it  to  harbour  when  your  sailing  days 
are  over  ?  99  it  said, — and  the  idea  was  that  if  you 
did  not  want  the  ship  of  your  hopes  to  make  money 
and  save  money  to  be  lost  and  go  to  wreck,  you  had 
better  come  and  let  the  bank  teach  you  the  thrifty 
ways  that  would  make  your  ship  come  safely 
home. 

Hut  that  is  still  not  the  best  sermon  which  we 
can  get  from  the  picture  of  the  ship.  It  may  be 
good  to  want  to  make  money;  it  is  better  to  want 
to  make  the  best  of  ourselves.  I  want  to  be  brave, 
and  good,  and  useful,  and  strong — that  is  the 
noblest  of  all  ships  of  hope  for  a  boy  or  girl  to 
build.  I  want  my  life  to  go  sailing  out  like  the 
beautiful  ship  which  shall  bring  back  to  those  who 
watch  for  it  all  manner  of  fine  and  helpful  things, 
— that  is  the  best  of  desires  for  us  to  cherish.  But 
there  are  dangers  in  the  way  of  the  ship  of  hope. 
There  are  the  pirates  of  the  secret  sins.  There 
are  the  hidden  rocks  of  mistakes  that  wreck  us  just 
when  we  are  most  confident.  There  are  times  when 
we  ourselves  grow  so  confused  about  the  way  to  be 
good,  and  so  discouraged  when  we  have  tried  to  do 
good  and  failed,  that  we  wonder  whether  we  can 
ever  bring  our  ship  of  hope  to  port.  And  then 


SHIPS  OF  HOPE 


133 


some  far  day,  when  we  grow  old  and  the  shadows 
gather,  and  we  wonder  how  we  can  guide  the  ship 
through  the  narrow  ways  that  men  call  death,  we 
know  we  need  a  Captain  who  is  wiser  than  we  are. 
“  The  Ship  of  Your  Hopes,  who  will  bring  it  to 
harbour  when  your  sailing  days  are  over  ?  ”  There 
is  only  one  Captain  wise  enough — only  one  whom 
boys  and  girls,  and  men  and  women,  can  trust  to 
hold  the  rudder  of  their  hearts.  His  name  is 
Jesus!  “  Jesus,  Saviour,  pilot  me,”  we  sing  in  the 
old  hymn ;  and  it  is  with  Jesus  as  our  Pilot  and  our 
Captain  that  we  can  send  bravely  out  the  ships  of 
all  high  hopes,  and  know  that  through  Him  they 
will  come  home. 


33 


THE  GOOD  SPIRITS 


HE  other  da y  I  read  a  beautiful  story 
about  the  Indians  who  used  to  live  in  this 
great  country  of  ours,  and  roam  across  its 
plains,  and  bunt  in  its  woods,  long  before  the  white 
man  came.  It  is  said  that  on  summer  nights,  when 
the  corn  was  ripening,  just  before  dawn  the  In¬ 
dians  would  go  into  the  corn  fields,  and  lifting  their 
hands  straight  up  toward  the  sky,  they  would  chant 
this  prayer 


“  Chitani-wa-ganit,  Good  Spirit  of  Strength, 
Ilau-wa-ganit,  Good  Spirit  of  Courage, 
Wula-wa-ganit,  Good  Spirit  of  Truth, 

Enter  Thou  into  our  corn. 

That  we  who  eat  thereof 

May  become  strong  and  brave  and  true.” 

Then  the  old,  old  story  says  that  when  the  sun 
was  rising,  and  the  morning  mists  were  lifting  from 
the  corn  fields,  the  three  Good  Spirits  would  come, 
and  Chitani-wa-ganit,  the  Good  Spirit  of  Strength, 
would  raise  his  hand  in  the  Indian  sign  of  friendly 
blessing,  so  that  the  Indians  might  know  that  their 
prayer  was  heard  and  answered. 

Reading  of  them,  I  began  to  think  of  Jesus. 
Once,  you  remember,  on  the  night  of  the  day  of 

His  resurrection,  two  of  His  disciples  were  going 

134 


THE  GOOD  SPIRITS 


135 


along  a  road,  and  One  whom  they  thought  in  the 
shadows  to  he  a  stranger,  came  and  joined  them, 
and  walked  with  them  to  the  house  to  which  they 
went  in  the  little  village  of  Emmaus.  There  He 
sat  down  with  them  at  table,  and  took  the  bread, 
and  brake  it,  and  in  the  tones  of  His  voice,  as  He 
gave  thanks,  and  in  the  familiar  gesture  of  His 
hands,  as  He  brake  the  bread,  they  knew  that  it 
was  Jesus. 

Then  another  day,  after  the  time  when  He  was 
crucified,  and  the  disciples  had  gone  away  from 
Jerusalem,  they  were  fishing  one  morning,  in  the 
old,  familiar  way,  on  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  and  lo ! 
as  they  looked  up  through  the  morning  light,  there 
was  Jesus  standing  on  the  shore.  He  called  them 
to  come  near,  and  on  the  beach  they  made  a  fire, 
and  cooked  their  breakfast,  and  J esus  sat  there  with 
them  at  that  morning  meal. 

I  am  sure  that  both  those  times  when  the  dis¬ 
ciples  ate  their  bread  with  Jesus  by  them,  there 
came  not  only  into  their  bodies  the  strength  of  the 
bread,  but  into  their  spirits  His  strength  to  be 
strong  and  brave  and  true.  Long  ago  the  Indians 
prayed  as  best  they  knew,  for  the  Heavenly  Father 
of  us  all  had  put  into  their  hearts  the  instinct  to 
make  them  know  that  He  would  help  all  who  called 
upon  Him,  even  though  their  knowledge  was  only 
like  that  of  little  children.  And  we  to-day,  who 
know  more  than  the  Indians  knew,  understand  that 
in  Jesus  the  answer  to  all  our  prayers  is  found. 


136 


THE  GOOD  SPIRITS 


He  will  come  as  the  Good  Spirit  of  Strength,  and 
Courage,  and  Truth.  He  will  come  to  bless  the 
food  for  our  bodies,  and  to  he  the  food  for 
our  souls. 

So  it  would  be  well  for  Christian  boys  and  girls 
to  remember  the  beautiful  prayer  of  the  Indians, 
and  to  make  a  Christian  prayer  that  shall  be  even 
greater  than  theirs.  Here  is  a  grace  that  we  might 
learn  to  say  whenever  we  sit  down  at  table  to  the 
food  which  God  has  given  us : 

“  O  Lord  Jesus,  Good  Spirit  of  Truth,  and 
Courage,  and  Strength,  bless  Thou  this  food  to  our 
bodies,  and  to  our  souls,  that  we  may  be  true,  and 
brave,  and  strong  for  Thee.” 


34 


RIPENING  THE  GRAPES 

NEARLY  ©very  boy  and  girl  who  reads  this 
book  has  seen  a  grapevine  growing.  You 
know  how  the  vines  and  the  tendrils  and 
the  big  green  leaves  clamber  over  the  fence  or  the 
arbor  by  which  they  are  planted;  and  as  the  weeks 
of  summer  go  by,  you  can  go  and  look  under  the 
leaves,  and  there  are  the  grapes.  At  first  they  are 
clusters  of  tiny  things  hardly  bigger  than  little 
beads;  then,  gradually,  the  grapes  grow  larger  till 
they  are  almost  as  big  as  they  will  ever  be,  but  they 
are  still  green  and  hard  until  after  the  long  hot 
suns  of  August  have  begun  to  ripen  them.  Once 
out  in  the  country  at  a  place  where  there  were  many 
grapes,  at  a  time  in  duly  when  the  grape  clusters 
had  not  begun  to  soften,  I  saw  a  lady  start  out 
along  her  vines  with  a  lot  of  paper  bags.  And  what 
do  you  suppose  she  did  with  them  ?  She  put  a  bag 
over  every  bunch  of  grapes,  and  tied  the  mouth  of 
the  bag  with  a  string  tight  around  the  stem,  so  that 
the  bunch  of  grapes  was  out  of  sight  entirely — like 
children  popped  into  bed  in  the  day  time  with  the 
covers  right  over  their  ears ! 

Then  I  began  to  think  what  a  wailing  and  com¬ 
plaining  the  grapes  might  be  making  if  only  we 

137 


138 


RIPENING  THE  GRAPES 


could  hear  what  they  said.  Mustn’t  they  be  indig¬ 
nant  that  anybody  should  tie  them  up  in  bags  like 
that !  Think  of  all  the  nice  warm  sun  and  air  that 
they  couldn’t  taste  any  more.  Think  of  all  the 
green  grass  and  the  trees  that  they  couldn’t  see — 
and  the  birds,  and  the  bees,  and  all  the  interesting 
things  that  liked  to  twitter  and  hover  in  the  vines. 
They  couldn’t  play  with  them  any  more,  and  with 
these  bags  over  their  heads  they  would  surely  never 
ripen,  and  they  would  be  hard  and  green  all  their 
lives,  and  never  beautiful  and  sweet  and  purple  as 
grapes  ought  to  he.  It  was  just  plain  cruelty  they 
thought,  and  they  were  sure  their  lot  was  very 
hard. 

But  what  was  the  lady  really  meaning  when  she 
tied  the  hags  over  their  heads?  Did  she  have  a 
grudge  against  the  grapes?  Not  at  all.  She  was 
doing  the  wisest  and  helpfulest  thing  for  them  that 
anyone  could  do,  even  though  the  little  grapes, 
being  very  young  yet,  did  not  know  it.  Eor  if  you 
leave  grapes  out  in  the  open  air,  when  they  begin 
to  soften  just  a  little  toward  getting  ripe,  the  birds 
will  commence  to  come  down  in  swarms  and  feed 
upon  them;  and  the  bees  will  rob  them  of  their 
juice  to  make  their  honey,  and  all  sorts  of  flies  and 
crawling  things  will  sting  them,  so  that  many  of 
the  grapes  will  never  ripen  into  the  fine  purple 
of  the  autumn  at  all,  but  will  he  picked  to  pieces 
and  spoiled  long  before  the  gathering  time.  The 
hags  protect  them  from  the  birds  and  bees  and  flies, 


RIPENING  THE  GRAPES 


139 

and  the  bags  do  not  keep  out  the  good,  strong  heat 
of  the  summer  sun.  Instead,  the  grapes  ripen  just 
as  surely  inside  the  bags  as  though  the  sun  shone 
directly  on  them,  and  with  a  more  even  sweetness 
all  through  the  cluster. 

So  really  if  the  grapes  had  known  what  the  lady 
was  doing  whep  she  tied  the  bags  over  their  heads 
they  would  have  been  glad.  The  day  will  come 
when  the  bags  will  come  off,  and  they  will  look  out 
on  the  sun  and  the  grass  and  the  trees  and  on  each 
other,  and  be  mightily  astonished  and  proud  to  see 
what  great  purple,  perfect  grapes  they  have  come 
to  be! 

Maybe  you  can  think  of  times  when  boys  and 
girls  are  like  the  grapes.  Sometimes  when  they  go 
to  school  they  feel  just  as  the  grapes  did  when  the 
bags  were  tied  over  their  heads.  The  fall  days 
return,  and  the  school  doors  open  and  the  bell  rings 
again;  and  boys  and  girls  begin  to  lament  that  the 
vacation  is  over  and  that  they  have  to  go  into  that 
old  shut-in  school  again!  “  No  more  freedom  and 
fun,”  they  think.  “  No  more  playing  as  we  please! 
Back  go  our  heads  into  a  bag  of  books,  and  what’s 
the  good  of  living  any  more !  ” 

What  is  the  good  ?  All  the  good  there  is.  The 
best  sort  of  good,  which  they  will  be  glad  of  and 
proud  of  after  a  while.  For  this  is  the  time  of 
ripening.  The  little  birds  of  carelessness,  and  the 
flies  of  idleness  that  buzz  and  sting,  are  shut  out, 
so  that  they  can  think  and  study  and  learn,  and  all 


140  RIPENING  THE  GRAPES 

their  minds  grow  as  full  of  happy  knowledge  as 
the  grapes  are  full  of  juice.  The  boy  and  girl  who 
will  ripen  most,  and  he  the  proudest  when  they 
come  to  see  what  has  happened,  are  the  ones  who 
can  keep  the  hag  on  closest  and  be  happy  inside. 
Sometimes  we  see  people  who  when  they  go  to 
school,  or  when  they  have  any  important  thing  to 
do,  or  when  they  are  reading  in  a  room  with  other 
people,  can  shut  themselves  in  so  thoroughly  to 
their  own  thoughts  that  no  noise  nor  anybody 
buzzing  about  can  distract  them  at  all.  That  is 
what  people  call  “  concentration  ” — which  is  a 
big  word,  but  all  that  it  means  is  just  what  we 
have  been  talking  about.  It  means  that  we  shut 
out  the  things  that  distract  us,  and  get  close 
inside  our  own  thought  where  the  thing  we  want 
to  know  about  will  ripen  quickly.  And  we  have 
this  advantage  over  the  grapes.  They  could  be 
glad  at  last  that  the  lady  had  put  the  bags  upon 
them ;  but  we  can  be  smart  enough  to  put  them  on 
ourselves. 


35 


NAILS,  AND  HOW  TO  USE  THEM 


ALL  the  boys  and  girls  I  know  love  to  ride 
in  automobiles.  If  they  see  one  about  to 
start  out,  they  are  sure  to  run  and  say, 
e{  Let  me  go,  too !  ”  If  the  boys  and  girls  who  read 
this  book  feel  that  same  way,  they  will  know  what 
a  good  time  I  bad  when  one  day,  not  long  ago,  I 
started  out  one  fine  June  morning,  with  some 
pleasant  people,  to  come  more  than  a  hundred 
"miles  in  an  automobile  along  a  smooth  road  through 
the  open  country.  It  was  a  clear,  cool  day,  with 
the  bright  sun  shining  in  the  fields  and  hills,  and 
the  fence  rows  sweet  with  honeysuckle.  We 
skimmed  along  with  everything  going  finely,  and 
the  road  all  open  before  us,  until  we  had  gone  half 
the  whole  distance  ;  and  then  we  came  to  a  bridge, 
across  a  wide  river. 

The  bridge  needed  repairing,  and  some  carpen¬ 
ters  were  at  work  mending  it.  They  were  taking 
up  old  planks  from  the  floor  of  it,  and  putting  new 
hoards  in  their  places,  and  nailing  these  down.  Of 
course,  where  they  were  working  the  bridge  was 
blocked,  and  automobiles  and  wagons,  coming  from 

both  directions  to  the  ends  of  the  bridge  to  cross 

141 


142  NAILS,  AND  HOW  TO  USE  THEM 

the  river,  had  to  stop.  There  they  were,  in  long 
lines,  ranged  one  behind  another,  waiting  for  the 
way  to  he  opened  so  that  they  could  go  across.  We 
took  onr  places  in  line,  too,  and  waited  and  waited 
■until  we  were  all  impatient.  It  was  more  than  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  that  we  had  to  stay,  until  at  last 
enough  of  the  new  hoards  were  down  in  place  on 
the  bridge  for  the  carpenters  to  stop  a  while  and 
let  us  go  by. 

Then  on  we  went,  thinking  now  that  all  the  way 
was  surely  clear  before  us,  and  we  could  speed 
along  to  the  journey’s  end.  But  we  had  gone  only 
a  few  hundred  yards  beyond  the  bridge  when  some¬ 
thing  began  to  bump  and  rattle,  and  we  stopped 
and  got  out,  and  there  was  one  of  the  tires  gone  flat 
with  a  big  nail  stuck  through  it.  Then  we  knew 
that  the  tire  must  have  picked  up  a  nail  on  the 
bridge.  Instead  of  keeping  their  nails  carefully  in 
a  box,  or  in  their  apron  pockets,  the  carpenters  had 
strewn  them  around  the  floor  of  the  bridge,  and 
here  was  this  nail  which  had  ripped  straight 
through  the  tire  and  let  all  the  air  out  in  a  mo¬ 
ment.  So  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  stop  in  the 
hot  sunshine,- — for  it  was  noontime  then,  and  the 
sun  was  straight  up  above  us  in  the  sky, — and  work 
on  the  dusty  wheel  until  we  had  the  flat  tire  off 
and  a  new  tire  in  its  place.  Meanwhile,  you  can 
be  sure  that  everyone  was  wishing  that  the  carpen¬ 
ters  had  been  more  careful,  and  had  not  strewn 
their  nails  about. 


NAILS,  AND  HOW  TO  USE  THEM  143 

But  the  more  I  began  to  think  about  that  nail 
the  more  I  began  to  realize  how  many  of  us  are 
like  the  careless  carpenters.  We  strew  things 
about  which  can  do  even  more  harm  than  a  nail. 
They  are  the  things  which  all  of  us  have  to  do  with 
every  day.  They  are  words. 

The  words  which  you  and  I  use  whenever  we 
talk  are  like  the  nails  which  the  carpenters  had 
there  to  build  the  bridge.  We  can  use  these  words 
which  we  speak  in  helpful  ways  as  the  carpenters 
could  use  the  nails  to  mend  something  which  was 
broken  and  make  it  strong;  or  we  can  scatter  them 
recklessly  here  and  there,  like  nails  dropped  on  the 
roadway  to  make  trouble  for  everyone  who  goes 
along. 

Suppose,  for  example,  we  hear  of  a  boy  who  has 
done  something  wrong,  or  is  being  very  reckless,  so 
that  wrong  may  result  after  a  while.  The  kind 
thing  for  a  friend  to  do  is  to  go  straight  to  that  boy 
and  show  him  just  where  he  is  making  a  mistake, 
and  why  it  is  a  mistake,  and  so  help  him  to  have 
more  sense  and  to  do  better.  If  the  boy  knows 
that  the  one  who  comes  to  him  is  his  friend  and  is 
fond  of  him,  he  will  stop  and  listen,  and  the  damage 
will  be  mended.  Every  kind,  true  word  which  is 
spoken  that  way  is  like  the  good,  straight  nail 
driven  in  its  right  place  to  mend  the  weak  spot  in 
the  bridge.  It  mends  character  and  holds  it  to¬ 
gether  and  prevents  disaster. 

But  suppose,  instead  of  that,  we  hear  a  report 


144  NAILS,  AND  HOW  TO  USE  THEM 


of  some  ugly  thing  which  has  been  done,  and  in¬ 
stead  of  going  in  a  loving  sort  of  helpfulness  to  set 
it  right,  we  commence  to  gossip.  You  know  how 
gossip  spreads,  and  how  people  begin,  “  They  say,” 
or  “  People  tell  me,”  or  “  I  hear  so  and  so,”  and 
then  without  stopping  to  hear  all  the  truth,  they 
scatter  the  ugly  report  broadcast.  And  presently 
a  great  many  people’s  feelings  may  he  hurt,  and 
there  is  trouble  and  anger.  Words  like  these — the 
careless,  thoughtless,  gossipy  words — are  like  the 
sharp-pointed  nails  scattered  on  the  floor  of  the 
bridge. 

In  the  wise  old  hook  of  Ecclesiastes  there  is  a 
phrase  which  runs  like  this :  “  The  words  of  the 
wise  are  as  nails  fastened  by  the  master  of  assem¬ 
blies.”  That  means  that  the  words  of  good  and 
thoughtful  people  are  like  the  nails  which  are 
driven  by  the  master  carpenters  who  make  every 
nail  count  for  helpfulness  and  service,  and  do  not 
throw  any  down  where  they  will  hurt  and  hinder 
the  passer-hy.  That  is  what  we  want  to  do  with  all 
the  words  we  speak.  We  want  to  make  them  count 
for  kindness,  which  means  building  up,  and  not  for 
recklessness,  which  scars  and  hurts  and  hinders. 


PREVENTING  FIRES 


IN  a  city  which  I  know  of  there  were  put  up 
a  while  ago,  in  shop  windows  and  other  con¬ 
spicuous  places,  posters  which  told  the  people 
that  it  was  “  Eire  Prevention  Week.”  On  the 
poster  was  a  picture  of  a  house  on  fire,  with  flames 
pouring  from  the  windows,  and  leaping  from  the 
roof.  Eire  engines  were  hurrying  toward  it, 
and  presently  the  ladders  would  he  up  and  streams 
of  water  flung  into  the  flames.  But  from  the  way 
the  house  was  burning,  it  looked  as  though  they 
would  be  too  late.  The  fire  had  gained  too  much 
of  a  start  to  be  stopped  before  the  building  had 
been  ruined. 

That  is  the  way  it  so  often  is  with  fires.  They 
start  in  some  hidden  place,  and  the  flames  begin 
to  spread,  and  before  anyone  notices  them,  and 
turns  in  the  alarm,  they  have  spread  so  far  that 
nothing  can  save  the  building  then,  no  matter  how 
many  fire  engines  come  hurrying  up. 

In  this  same  city  where  I  saw  the  posters  which 
I  am  telling  you  of,  there  happened  two  great  fires 
in  one  year.  The  first  was  in  a  store  filled  with 
furniture,  and  it  happened  one  Sunday  morning 
just  as  people  were  coming  out  of  Church,  and  all 


146 


PREVENTING  FIRES 


the  congregations  flowed  into  the  streets  to  see  it. 
Firemen  from  every  quarter  of  the  city  were 
brought  out  as  one  alarm  after  another  was  rung. 
Some  of  them  were  on  the  roof  of  the  building  next 
door,  and  while  they  were  there  the  wall  of  the 
building  which  was  burning  fell  in,  and  carried 
the  men,  and  the  roof  on  which  they  were  standing, 
down  into  the  wreckage  and  flames  to  their  death. 

Not  many  months  after  that  a  fire  broke  out  in 
an  old  hotel.  It  was  early  in  the  morning,  and 
people  were  asleep  in  their  beds.  Before  they  were 
awakened,  the  flames  were  roaring  up  the  stairs  and 
through  the  hallways.  People  were  trapped  in  their 
rooms,  and  many  were  burned  to  death  or  killed 
as  they  tried  to  leap  from  the  windows  to  the  street 
below. 

In  both  of  these  fires  it  was  too  late  to  stop  them 
when  the  firemen  came.  What  was  needed  was 
that  they  should  have  been  prevented  before  they 
ever  had  a  start.  No  one  knew  what  set  the  furni¬ 
ture  store  on  fire,  but  in  the  hotel  there  were  a  num¬ 
ber  of  cans  of  paint,  and  a  great  many  old  rags, 
full  of  grease  and  oil,  which  had  been  left  down 
at  the  bottom  of  the  elevator  shaft  by  careless  work¬ 
men.  It  was  there  that  the  fire  began,  and  it 
streamed  up  the  elevator  shaft,  and  made  the  whole 
building  like  a  furnace  before  anyone  could  know. 
The  fire  was  possible  because  of  the  carelessness 
which  had  left  the  rubbish  in  which  a  fire  could  get 
its  start. 


PREVENTING  FIRES 


147 


In  the  same  way,  the  wise  thing  is  to  keep 
onr  hearts  clean  of  the  rubbish  which  may  start  a 
fire  there.  Down  in  some  dark  corner  of  the  heart, 
for  example,  there  may  be  the  old  grudge  against 
someone  whom  we  may  imagine  to  have  done  us  a 
wrong.  Perhaps  we  do  not  think  of  it  very  much, 
but  there  it  is,  full  of  dangerous  possibilities,  like 
old  waste  soaked  with  oil ;  and  it  may  be  some  day 
that  a  single  word  which  angers  us,  or  a  little  slight 
which  may  not  have  been  intended,  falls  on  that 
ugly  grudge  like  a  match,  and  it  flames  up  into 
some  explosion  of  temper  which  we  are  bitterly 
ashamed  of  afterwards.  Or  in  a  corner  of  the 
mind  may  be  the  impure  memory,  or  the  unclean 
imagination  which  we  have  not  set  ourselves  to 
clear  away ;  and  one  day  the  flame  of  some  tempta¬ 
tion  falls  upon  it,  and  the  fire  of  some  evil  reck¬ 
lessness  leaps  up  and  scars  us  in  a  way  which  it 
is  hard  ever  again  to  hide.  The  only  safe  thing  is 
to  take  care  before  the  fire  comes  that  there  is  noth¬ 
ing  in  us  to  start,  and  to  spread,  the  blaze.  There 
needs  to  be  a  “  Fire  Prevention  Week  ”  every  once 
in  a  while  for  all  Christian  people — a  time  when 
everybody  will  pray,  in  the  beautiful  words  of  the 
psalm,  u  Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  0  God,”  and 
when  everybody  will  set  to  work  to  clear  out  the 
ancient  grudges  and  the  ugly  thoughts,  and  every¬ 
thing  else  on  which  the  fires  of  evil  might  feed. 


37 

THE  SMOTHERED  LIGHT  * 


( *  For  this  sermon  there  is  needed  a  thin  glass  tumbler 
and  a  short  candle,  set  on  a  candlestick  of  the  following 
sort.  The  socket  which  holds  the  candle  should  be  in  the 
midst  of  a  shallow  saucer  upon  which  the  edges  of  the 
tumbler,  when  turned  upside  down,  can  fit  smoothly.  It 
is  better  if  this  saucer  should  have  some  perforations  in  it, 
such  as  one  may  see  sometimes  in  candlesticks  made  of  open¬ 
work  brass.  ) 

TO  every  single  one  of  ns  God  has  given 
wondrous  gifts.  He  gives  us,  first  of  all, 
the  marvelous  gift  of  life  itself,  with  a 
body  to  grow  strong,  and  a  mind  to  learn  more  and 
more  each  day.  He  has  given  us  health  and 
strength,  perhaps.  He  has  given  us  our  home  and 
friends,  and  all  the  lovely  kindnesses  from  the  peo¬ 
ple  who  love  us  all  the  time.  The  thought  of  these 
things  is  like  a  light  which  ought  to  burn  in  us 
bright  and  clear. 

(Light  the  candle.) 

It  is  like  the  light  of  this  candle  which  can  burn 
steady  and  strong.  You  can  carry  it  into  dark 
places,  hut  the  darkness  will  not  smother  it.  It 
will  light  up  the  darkness  itself.  It  can  spread 
its  own  brightness,  and  make  shadowed  places  clear 
wherever  it  goes. 

But  suppose  people  begin  to  he  selfish  with  all 

the  brightness  and  happiness  which  God  has  given 

148 


THE  SMOTHERED  LIGHT 


149 


them.  Suppose  they  grow  churlish  and  fretful  of 
every  little  thing  which  they  imagine  might  take 
their  happiness  away.  Suppose  they  think  they  will 
shut  that  happiness  in  to  themselves.  They  will  take 
good  care  of  what  is  their  own  and  see  that  no  harm 
comes  to  it.  It  sounds  as  though  that  might  he  a 
very  wise  and  prudent  thing  to  do,  hut  it  really  is 
not.  Suppose  this  candle  should  say,  “  I  must  pro¬ 
tect  my  light  before  I  do  anything  else.  I  must 
cover  it  up  so  that  no  harm  can  come  to  it.  (Put 
the  tumbler  down  over  the  lighted  candle.)  I  will 
let  this  glass  shelter  it  from  every  draught.”  But 
look, — and  look, — and  look  now  again.  The  flame 
is  sheltered,  but  it  is  sheltered  too  much.  It  is 
protected,  hut  it  is  smothered,  too-.  See  how  it 
grows  red, — and  dwindles  down, — and  now  it  has 
gone  out  entirely. 

That  is  what  happens  to  selfish  lives.  There  is 
a  way  of  doing  what  we  suppose  will  protect  all 
our  own  interests  which  really  only  smothers  the 
best  we  have,  and  puts  the  light  of  gladness  out, 
just  as  the  light  of  the  candle  went  out  in  the  stifled 
air.  To  keep  the  brightness  for  ourselves,  we  must 
not  think  of  ourselves  too  much.  We  must  hold  it 
up  where  all  that  God  has  given  us  will  shine  for 
others,  and  then  it  will  shine  best  for  us. 


38 


“  SHINE  INSIDE  ” 

MANY  times  as  you  have  gone  along  the 
streets  you  have  seen  a  sign  which  said, 
“  Shine  Inside.”  Perhaps  it  was  over  a 
door  that  you  reached  by  stairs  going  down  from 
the  level  of  the  street,  or  over  some  little  shop 
where  you  could  see  the  chairs  inside.  It  was  the 
sign  of  a  bootblack.  What  it  means  is  that  if  you 
will  come  inside  where  the  bootblack  is,  you  can 
get  a  shine  on  your  shoes. 

Well,  you  have  all  seen  that,  you  say,  but  what 
has  that  got  to  do  with  a  sermon  for  children? 
There  is  nothing  remarkable  about  getting  your 
shoes  shined,  and  you  do  not  see  anything  particu¬ 
larly  remarkable  either  in  the  sign  which  says, 
“  Shine  Inside.” 

It  is  true  that  just  that  sign  by  itself,  and 
meaning  only  what  it  does  mean  when  you  see  it 
on  the  streets,  is  not  very  remarkable.  But  sup¬ 
pose  you  should  take  the  same  words  and  make 
them  mean  a  bigger  thing.  The  bootblack’s  sign 
means  simply  that  if  you  come  inside  his  place  you 
can  get  a  shine  on  your  shoes.  But  did  you  ever 
stop  to  think  that  there  are  places  into  which  you 

can  go  and  get  a  shine  all  over?  You  have  heard 

150 


“  SHINE  INSIDE” 


151 


it  said  of  boys  and  girls  wben  tboy  wore  very  bappy 
that  they  had  shining  faces.  You  have  seen  people 
who  had  shining  eyes.  You  know  some  people 
whose  hearts  must  he  shining,  because  everything 
about  them  is  full  of  the  beautiful  light  of  cheer¬ 
fulness  and  joy.  The  finest  places  in  the  world 
are  the  places  which  make  people  shine  like  that. 
If  it  meant  that  by  going  in  you  could  get  the  sort 
of  a  shine  which  makes  you  glad  and  bright  all 
through,  then  it  would  be  a  wonderful  thing  to  see 
the  sign  that  says,  “  Shine  Inside.” 

Some  homes  are  like  that.  There  are  homes 
where  the  mother  is  so  sweet  and  unselfish  and  so 
busy  all  the  time  in  making  everybody  happy,  that 
all  the  eyes  and  all  the  faces  shine  in  the  family 
which  gathers  round  her.  Sometimes  boys  and 
girls  do  not  stop  to  realize  who  it  is  that  is  making 
all  the  happiness  they  share.  Perhaps  if  it  were 
left  just  to  them,  home  would  not  be  such  a  bright 
place,  because  it  would  not  be  so  unselfish  and 
lovely.  What  every  one  of  us  must  try  to  do  in 
the  home  that  we  belong  to,  and  in  every  other 
place  to  which  we  often  go,  is  to  try  to  make  it  the 
kind  of  place  of  which  people  can  know  that  their 
hearts  and  their  faces  will  surely  find  a  “  Shine 
Inside.” 

There  was  a  beautiful  play  written  once  which 
was  called  “  The  Passing  of  the  Third  Floor  Back.” 
It  was  a  play  about  a  boarding  house  where  every¬ 
body  was  snarly  and  gossipy  and  mean,  until  one 


152 


“  SHINE  INSIDE ” 


day  there  came  a  new  somebody  into  their  midst. 
Nobody  paid  much  attention  to  him  at  first.  He 
was  poor  and  unpretentious.  He  lived  in  the  little 
room  on  the  third  floor  back.  But  wherever  he 
went,  somehow  people  began  to  feel  better,  and  to 
be  better.  He  was  so  kind  and  gentle,  so  sure  of 
the  best  in  everybody,  and  he  had  such  a  way  of 
making  people  feel  ashamed  of  being  less  good  than 
he  thought  they  were,  that  after  a  while  he  had 
the  whole  house  which  before  had  been  ngly  and 
disagreeable,  shining  with  a  new  spirit.  He  made 
it  plain  how  wonderful  a  thing  it  could  be  to  have 
for  the  hearts  of  people  a  sign  on  the  house  which 
says,  “  Shine  Inside.” 


39 


“  KEEP  TO  THE  RIGHT  ” 

THE  other  day  in  a  gutter  near  a  street 

corner  where  a  great  many  automobiles 

go  by,  I  found  this  broken  piece  of  board. 

On  it  you  can  see  the  letters  painted — “  Keep  To 

The  Right  and  you  can  guess  what  this  board 

came  from.  It  is  a  part  of  one  of  the  traffic  signs 

which  are  put  in  the  middle  of  the  streets  where 

the  automobiles  turn,  so  that  all  the  automobiles 

going  in  different  directions,  hut  each  one  keeping 

to  the  right,  and  turning  on  its  own  side  of  the 

street,  may  give  every  other  automobile  plenty  of 

room  and  avoid  collisions.  Somebody  one  day,  or 

maybe  one  night,  had  not  paid  any  attention  to  the 

sign.  Instead  of  keeping  to  his  own  side  of  the 

turn  he  had  tried  to  cut  straight  across  the  place 

where  the  streets  come  together,  and  had  smashed 

straight  into  the  sign  and  had  broken  it  all  to 

pieces.  Perhaps  no  policeman  was  anywhere  near, 

so  that  he  got  away  without  being  caught,  but  I 

expect  that  every  time  he  has  driven  by  since  and 

seen  the  broken  sign  in  the  gutter,  and  knows  that 

he  had  broken  it,  he  feels  guilty  and  wonders  if  a 

policeman  will  come  after  him. 

The  whole  trouble  was  that  he  did  not  keep  to 

the  right.  Probably  he  had  seen  the  sign  a  great 

153 


154 


*  KEEP  TO  THE  RIGHT  ” 


many  times,  and  knew  perfectly  well  what  he  ought 
to  do,  hut  he  did  not  do  it.  He  tried  to  cut  a  sharp 
corner,  and  immediately  he  got  into  trouble. 

A  sign  like  this  that  says,  “Keep  To  The 
Right, ”  is  a  good  sign  for  us  to  put  up  not  only 
on  street  comers,  hut  on  all  the  paths  of  our  con¬ 
science.  It  means  that  we  must  play  fair,  keep  to 
our  own  part  of  the  way,  and  give  everybody  else 
an  equal  chance.  It  means  that  we  shall  not  cut 
corners  nor  try  to  take  a  wrong  advantage  of  the 
other  hoy  and  girl  whose  paths  may  cross  our  own. 

Here,  for  example,  are  boys  and  girls  who  go  to 
school.  The  teacher  has  given  everybody  a  com¬ 
position  to  write,  or  some  French  exercises  to  trans¬ 
late,  or  there  is  the  new  arithmetic  lesson  with 
some  sums  in  it  which  are  different  from  those  the 
children  have  had  before,  and  are  hard  to  work. 
Suppose  one  boy  or  girl  has  sat  down  and  worked 
hard  on  the  lesson,  and  got  everything  done — the 
composition  written,  the  sentences  translated,  the 
arithmetic  worked  out  right — and  suppose  some¬ 
body  else  has  idled  away  the  time  doing  nothing, 
and  comes  to  school  in  the  morning  with  only  half 
the  work  even  tried,  and  some  of  that  done  wrong, 
and  says  to  the  one  who  has  finished,  “  Let  me  look 
on  your  book  and  copy  your  sentences,  and  get  your 
answers  before  the  bell  rings  for  class,  or  else  the 
teacher  will  be  mad  with  me  because  my  paper  is 
empty.”  The  boy  and  girl  who  do  that  may  make 
the  teacher  think  that  the  work  has  been  done  when 


“  KEEP  TO  THE  RIGHT  ” 


155 


it  really  has  not  been  done  at  all,  but  they  have 
cut  a  sharp  corner,  and  they  cannot  feel  right  about 
it  inside.  They  have  tried  to  get  credit  which  did 
not  belong  to  them,  and  they  know  very  well  that 
is  not  fair. 

Or  suppose  some  hoys  are  playing  a  game — per¬ 
haps  it  is  football — and  one  hoy  thinks  that  he  can 
trip  up  the  boy  on  the  other  side,  or  play  a  rough, 
dirty  game  when  the  umpire  is  not  looking.  Or 
suppose  a  girl  is  playing  tennis,  and  she  calls  a  ball 
“  out  ”  which  she  knows  was  just  on  the  line,  but 
the  girl  she  was  playing  against  could  not  see  it; 
the  boy  and  the  girl  may  win  their  game,  but  they 
have  cut  an  ugly  corner,  and  the  scar  is  on  them 
just  as  surely  as  it  is  on  the  automobile  that  ran 
into  the  traffic  sign,  and  when  they  think  of  it  they 
will  always  feel  guilty  in  their  conscience. 

Sometimes  you  will  hear  men  talk  of  other  men 
who  are  in  business,  and  there  is  hardly  anything 
worse  one  man  can  say  about  another  man  than  that 
“  he  cuts  sharp  comers.”  They  mean  he  is  not  con¬ 
siderate  of  another  man’s  rights.  He  will  edge  in 
and  take  the  mean  advantage  if  he  can.  Such  a 
man  as  that  may  seem  to  get  around  the  turn  fast¬ 
est,  but  after  a  while  nobody  likes  him  nor  respects 
him  any  more. 

u  Keep  To  The  Right.”  That  is  the  sign  we 
want  to  follow  on  our  city  streets,  and  that  is  the 
sign  we  want  to  follow  on  all  the  roads  where  con¬ 
science  tells  us  how  to  go. 


40 


WHOSE  FACE  BELONGS  IN  THE 
WINDOW  ? 

NOT  long  ago  I  heard  a  little  boy  who  is 
seven  years  old  tell  his  ideas  about  the 
church,  and  so  I  think  I  shall  try  to  tell 
to  you,  as  well  as  I  can  remember,  just  exactly  what 
he  said,  and  he  will  he  the  preacher  to-day  instead 
of  me. 

He  said,  “  I  do  not  like  the  outside  of  our  church. 
It  does  not  look  clean,  and  it  needs  more  paint  on 
it.  The  church  ought  to  be  the  heautifulest  place 
in  the  whole  state.  And  another  thing, — the  boys 
and  girls  from  the  Sunday  School  run  around  and 
drop  their  papers  on  the  street  in  front  of  the 
church.  I  think  if  anybody  loses  their  paper  they 
ought  not  to  have  any  more  the  next  Sunday  until 
they  find  them,  and  then  they  will  stop  losing 
them.” 

Then  his  mother  asked  him,  “  What  do  you  think 
of  the  inside  of  the  church  ?  ” 

“  I  love  the  inside,”  said  the  little  hoy,  “  because 
that  is  all  light  and  beautiful.  But  the  people  in 
the  church  ought  to  he  different  from  the  way  some 
of  them  are.  Some  of  them  wear  black,  and  black 

does  not  present  the  Lord.  Black  is  the  devil,  and 

156 


WHOSE  FACE  IN  THE  WINDOW?  157 

it  ought  not  to  be  in  the  church.  All  the  people 
in  the  church  ought  to  look  bright  and  have  light  in 
their  faces  like  the  angels  in  the  windows,  and  the 
people  with  the  beautifulest  faces  ought  to  sit  next 
to  the  windows  and  the  doors,  so  that  anybody  who 
is  passing  by  and  sees  them  would  want  to 
come  in.” 

Now  that  is  what  the  little  boy  said,  and  I  leave 
it  to  you  to  think  about  and  see  whether  you  agree 
with  him.  I  think  almost  everything  he  said  is 
true,  just  as  he  said  it.  The  church  certainly 
ought  to  be  the  loveliest  place  in  the  whole  State. 
People  ought  to  stop  and  ask  themselves  whether 
they  have  a  right  to  look  black  and  solemn  in  the 
church  which  tells  us  of  Jesus  who  lived  and  died 
and  rose  again,  and  teaches  us  the  never-failing  love 
of  God,  and  whether  to  look  like  that,  as  the  little 
boy  said,  would  “  present  the  Lord.”  And  cer¬ 
tainly  it  would  be  fine  if  all  of  us  should  try  to 
have  a  light  on  our  faces  like  the  faces  of  the 
angels  in  the  windows. 

Then  how  would  it  be,  I  wonder,  if  we  could 
have  a  beauty  test,  just  along  the  lines  the  little 
boy  said,  and  choose  out  of  all  the  congregation  the 
men  and  women  and  the  boys  and  girls  who  ought 
to  sit  next  to  the  windows  and  the  doors  because 
people  seeing  them  would  want  to  come  in  where 
they  were?  It  would  be  a  different  sort  of  beauty 
contest  from  the  ones  we  sometimes  think  of.  The 
people  who  fix  up  their  faces  most,  and  like  to  have 


158  WHOSE  FAGE  IN  THE  WINDOW? 


their  photographs  taken,  and  are  very  proud  of 
their  regular  features  might  not  be  the  ones  to  win 
at  all;  for  they  might  not  have  in  their  faces  the 
sort  of  look  which  would  make  other  people  want 
to  go  where  they  were.  And  perhaps  some  people 
who  had  thought  of  themselves  as  almost  ugly,  and 
did  not  have  any  beauty  of  the  picture-gallery  kind, 
in  this  contest  might  be  the  very  most  beautiful  of 
all,  because  there  is  a  light  in  their  faces  which 
makes  other  people  think  of  God  and  hope  to  find 
God  where  such  faces  are.  In  one  of  the  psalms 
it  is  written :  u  Elessed  are  the  people  that  know 
the  joyful  sound.  They  shall  walk,  0  Lord,  in  the 
light  of  Thy  countenance.”  It  means  that  the  peo¬ 
ple  who  have  in  their  hearts  something  which 
makes  them  glad  to  hear  the  church  bells  ring,  may 
reflect  in  their  faces  something  of  the  light  of  the 
face  of  God.  And  they  who  are  truly  looking  up 
into  God’s  face  will  have  thus  a  light  upon  their 
own  which  will  make  them  seem  beautiful  to  all 
those  who  look  and  understand. 


41 


“  WEIGH  YOUESELF  ” 

VEEY  often  in  stores,  and  particularly  in 
railroad  stations,  you  will  see  those  tall 
scales  with  a  platform  on  which  you  stand, 
and  there,  above  you,  a  big  circle  like  the  face  of 
a  clock,  and  an  arrow  that  will  turn  about  when 
you  put  a  penny  in  the  slot,  and  point  to  the  num¬ 
ber  which  shows  how  much  you  weigh.  At  the  top 
of  the  scales  there  are  generally  two  words,  “  Weigh 
yourself.”  When  people  read  that,  it  stirs  their 
curiosity.  They  wonder  how  much  they  do  weigh, 
and  so  they  get  on  the  scales  to  see. 

Sometimes  boys  and  girls  get  so  eager  about 
weighing  that  it  is  like  a  game  to  see  which  can 
beat  the  other.  In  the  summer  camps  to  which  so 
many  go,  there  is  very  often  a  list  put  up  on  the 
wall  somewhere  showing  how  much  each  boy  or  girl 
weighs  when  the  camp  begins.  Then  every  week 
everybody  is  weighed  again,  and  the  new  figures  are 
put  up  to  show  whether  they  have  gained,  and  if 
they  nave  gained,  how  much.  Of  course,  everybody 
is  very  eager  to  gain  a  half  pound  this  week  or  a 
pound  another  week,  and  to  have  a  fine  record  be¬ 
fore  the  summer  is  over;  for  when  anyone  weighs 

159 


160 


“  WEIGH  YOURSELF  ” 


more  it  means  that  he  is  growing,  and  he  feels 
stronger  and  healthier  all  the  time. 

But  those  words,  “  Weigh  yourself/’  have  an¬ 
other  meaning  also  which  it  is  very  helpful  for  us 
to  remember.  It  is  not  only  our  bodies  that  we 
are  concerned  with,  hut  our  characters,  too.  A  per¬ 
son  might  he  very  fat,  and  yet  not  amount  to  much 
because  there  was  a  very  small  somebody  inside. 
Sometimes  you  will  hear  the  expression  used,  that 
so  and  so  is  a  “  light-weight.”  This  means  that 
that  person  does  not  amount  to  very  much.  He 
does  not  seem  to  have  much  sense,  or  if  he  starts 
to  do  anything,  he  does  not  do  it  in  the  way  that 
really  counts.  And  then  you  hear  it  said,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  such  and  such  another  person  is  a 
real  “  heavy-weight.”  When  you  say  that,  you 
mean  that  when  he  gets  hack  of  anything,  you  know 
that  somebody  of  consequence  is  there.  He  has 
push,  and  perseverance,  and  power. 

One  of  the  psalms  speaks  of  people  who  are 
“  lighter  than  vanity,”  and  are  “  deceitful  upon  the 
weights.”  Whoever  wrote  that  psalm  long  ago,  was 
thinking  of  the  same  sort  of  people  whom  you  and 
I  can  see  to-day.  He  was  thinking  of  people  who 
in  their  appearance  make  a  large  show,  hut  really 
amount  to  very  little  when  they  come  to  the  test, — 
like  big,  flabby  children  who  climb  upon  the  scales, 
and  you  would  think  that  they  weigh  a  tremendous 
lot,  and  then  you  are  astonished  to  see  how  little 
they  weigh,  as  compared  with  their  looks ;  for  they 


«  WEIGH  YOURSELF  ” 


161 


are  all  flabbiness,  and  not  solid  with  muscle  and 
bone.  The  people  who  are  “  deceitful  upon  the 
weights  ”  puff  themselves  up,  and  look  large,  and 
pretend  to  be  important,  but  they  have  no  strength 
in  them  when  real  work  is  to  be  done.  In  the  book 
of  Daniel  there  is  a  story  of  a  king  named  Belshaz¬ 
zar,  who  had  such  a  high  opinion  of  himself  that 
he  thought  nothing  could  ever  hurt  him  or  over¬ 
throw  his  kingdom.  But  he  was  a  wicked,  selfish 
man,  and  God’s  eyes,  looking  upon  him,  knew  it. 
So  one  night  while  he  was  in  his  royal  hall  and  a 
great  feast  was  spread  before  him,  there  appeared 
a  hand  which  wrote  upon  the  wall,  and  the  words 
it  wrote  were  these :  “  Thou  art  weighed  in  the  bal¬ 
ance  and  found  wanting.” 

And  then,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  those 
whom  all  fine-spirited  boys  and  girls  will  want  to 
be  like— the  solid  people  who  can  be  counted  on 
through  and  through.  They  do  not  have  to  depend 
only  upon  the  judgment  of  men  to  show  what  they 
are  worth.  They  know  that  “  the  Lord  weigheth  the 
spirits,”  and  they  are  glad  to  have  Him  weigh  them 
on  His  just  scales  and  prove  the  real  integrity  of 
their  hearts.  They  know  that  their  purposes  are 
true  and  their  desires  are  sound,  and  that  these  are 
what  count  in  the  balances  of  God. 


42 


THE  REAL  WAY  TO  BE  HAPPY 

SOME  time  ago  there  was  a  great  deal  said 
in  the  newspapers  about  a  very  famous 
physician  who  had  come  to  Hew  York  and 
whose  name  is  Dr.  Lorenz.  He  does  not  live  in 
Hew  York,  or  in  America  at  all.  His  home  is  in 
Austria,  but  he  had  come  across  the  seas  to  help 
sick  children  here,  and  especially  to  help  little  crip¬ 
pled  children.  He  is  one  of  the  men  in  the  whole 
world  who  knows  most  about  that — most  about  how 
to  straighten  crooked  limbs,  and  to  help  lame  boys 
and  girls  learn  how  to  walk  again,  and  heal  the 
bent  backs,  and  so  make  many  little  children  who 
might  have  been  helpless  and  pitiful  all  their  lives 
be  strong  and  well  again.  It  was  nice  to  think  of 
his  coming  so  far  from  home  to  help  the  children 
here  in  America,  and  best  of  all  was  the  reason 
why  he  said  he  came.  After  the  war  the  people 
in  America  had  been  very  kind  to  the  boys  and 
girls  in  Austria,  which  is  his  home.  They  had 
sent  money,  and  food,  and  clothing  for  those  who 
had  been  made  poor  by  the  war,  and  Dr.  Lorenz 
thought  that  he  must  do  something  to  show  his 
gratitude  on  behalf  of  those  children.  He  would 

come  and  make  a  thank-offering  by  his  healing  skill. 

162 


THE  REAL  WAY  TO  BE  HAPPY  163 


To  do  something  for  other  little  children  would  be 
the  best  way  to  show  how  grateful  he  was  for  that 
which  had  been  done  for  the  little  children  in  the 
land  he  loved. 

It  is  fine  to  remember  that,  and  fine  to  think 
how  happy  that  good  physician  must  have  been  to 
see  how  many  people  he  had  helped  to  make  glad. 
Boys  and  girls  were  brought  to  him  from  every 
quarter,  hobbling  on  crutches  or  carried  in  the  arms 
of  fathers  and  mothers, — all  sorts  of  little  twisted, 
crippled  children,  with  eyes  full  of  wistfulness  and 
full  of  hope.  He  could  not  heal  them  all,  but  there 
were  many  whom  he  could  heal.  And  think  how 
joyous  they  must  have  been,  and  their  fathers  and 
mothers  with  them,  as  they  went  away  and  began 
really  to  believe  that  they  would  not  have  to  be  sick 
and  feeble  all  their  lives. 

If  you  and  I  want  to  be  happy,  we  must  be  learn¬ 
ing  what  that  good  physician  teaches.  The  way  to 
happiness  is  to  try  to  help  somebody  else.  Every 
time  we  remember  how  much  God  has  given  us — 
all  the  blessings  of  home  and  friends  and  clothes 
and  food  and  happy  pleasures — we  must  be  asking, 
too,  how  we  can  show  our  gratefulness  to  Him  by 
making  the  thank-offering  of  our  loving  help  to 
someone  else.  One  of  the  nicest  parts  in  the  story 
of  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy  is  the  chapter  which  tells 
how  Mr.  Faversham  came  from  the  great,  rich  Earl 
who  was  the  little  boy’s  grandfather, — though  the 
little  boy  did  not  know  it  then, — to  tell  him  that 


164  THE  REAL  WAY  TO  BE  HAPPY 


he  was  to  go  across  the  seas  and  live  in  a  castle,  and 
he  very  rich  and  great,  and  grow  np  to  be  an  Earl 
himself  by  and  by.  And  then  Mr.  Eaversham  told 
him  that  his  grandfather  had  sent  him  some  money 
to  do  whatever  he  wanted  with,  and  you  remember 
what  little  Lord  Fauntleroy  began  to  think.  He 
did  not  begin  to  plan  to  spend  the  money  on  him¬ 
self,  because  there  was  something  else  that  he 
wanted  to  do,  and  was  the  very  first  thing  he 
thought  of  because  it  was  what  made  him  happiest. 
He  would  go  out  and  give  some  money  to  the  old 
woman  who  sold  apples  on  the  corner ;  and  he  would 
buy  a  new  lot  of  brushes,  and  a  new  stand  and 
everything  for  his  friend  Dick,  who  was  a  boot- 
black.  And  he  would  help  the  cook’s  sister  who  had 
a  sick  husband  and  a  whole  house  full  of  little  chil¬ 
dren  at  home.  That  was  what  little  Lord  Eaunt- 
leroy  did,  not  because  somebody  told  him,  but  be¬ 
cause  he  wanted  to,  and  his  eyes  just  danced  with 
pleasure  at  the  thought. 

There  are  a  good  many  boys  and  girls,  and  men 
and  women,  too,  for  that  matter,  who  set  out  to  be 
happy  by  the  wrong  track,  and  so  they  never  arrive. 
They  think  that  the  way  to  be  happy  is  to  get  every¬ 
thing  and  keep  everything  for  themselves.  They 
are  suspicious  of  their  sisters  and  brothers  and 
other  children,  and  always  on  the  lookout  to  see 
what  they  can  snatch  first,  and  jealous  of  every¬ 
body  who  has  something  which  they  think  they 
ought  to  have  had  instead.  But  they  never  get  to 


THE  REAL  WAY  TO  RE  HAPPY  165 


be  happy  by  that  method.  Instead,  they  are  bad- 
tempered  and  restless  all  their  days.  There  is  al¬ 
ways  something  else  which  they  want  that  they  can¬ 
not  get,  and  so  they  are  forever  discontented.  But 
boys  and  girls  who  find  their  happiness  in  thinking 
about  how  much  they  have  already,  and  trying  to 
make  a  thank-offering  by  their  kindness  to  some¬ 
body  else,  never  need  to  be  discontented.  The 
thing  they  want  is  something  they  can  always  do, 
for  the  chance  to  be  kind  to  others  is  never  lacking. 
That  is  the  way  Jesus  made  His  life  so  beautiful 
and  glad,  and  we  can  try  to  be  like  Him.  We  may 
not  be  able  to  heal  the  bodies  of  other  boys  and 
girls,  like  the  physician  whom  I  told  you  of  first, 
but  we  can  heal  by  kindness  the  little  wounds 
which  ill-temper  and  unkindness  make,  and  we  can 
straighten  out  wrong  things,  and  help  the  spirits  of 
others  to  grow  up  clean  and  true.  That  is  what 
Jesus  did,  and  that  is  what  He  would  have  us  do. 


43 


A  BOY  WHO  IS  A  PREACHER 

IKJSTOW  a  little  boy  who  is  very  much  inter¬ 
ested  in  children’s  sermons,  and  he  is  a  good 
deal  of  a  preacher  of  children’s  sermons 
himself. 

One  morning  I  was  standing  with  him  at  a  win¬ 
dow  on  a  winter’s  day  when  the  deep  white  snow 
lay  on  the  ground.  He  looked  out  over  the  space 
where  the  snow  lay  smooth  and  unbroken,  and  he 
said,  “  I  see  a  children’s  sermon  that  you  can 
preach.” 

“  What  is  it  ?  ”  I  asked. 

“Well,”  said  he,  “you  see  that  snow?  If  you 
step  into  it  you  will  make  an  ugly  print  with  your 
feet  where  it  is  all  so  white  and  smooth.  And  if 
you  say  mean  words  and  do  mean  things,  you  make 
a  print  in  your  heart.” 

Then  he  was  silent  a  moment,  and  presently  he 
said,  “  I  know  another  children’s  sermon.  If  you 
drive  an  automobile  around  the  streets  and  don’t 
look  where  you  are  going,  and  run  into  something, 
you  damage  up  your  automobile;  and  if  you  do 
things  you  ought  not  to  do,  you  damage  up  your 
heart.” 


166 


A  BOY  WHO  IS  A  PREACHER 


167 


I  thought  those  were  two  very  good  children's 
sermons,  but  I  was  sorry  all  his  sermons  seemed 
to  be  so  gloomy.  It  would  be  too  bad  if  the  only 
things  we  could  remember  should  be  that  perhaps 
we  are  putting  in  our  souls  ugly  prints  which  will 
never  come  out,  and  running  about  in  foolish,  reck¬ 
less  fashion  and  damaging  our  hearts  until  they 
look  like  automobiles  which  have  been  in  a  collision, 
scarred  and  crippled,  and  with  all  their  freshness 
gone.  And  so  I  was  glad  when  he  went  on  to  say, 
“  I  know  another  children's  sermon."  And  when 
I  asked  what  it  was,  he  told  me  this,  which  I  am 
sure  you  will  think  was  the  nicest  one  of  the 
three. 

He  said,  “  If  you  have  a  vase  and  put  a  flower 
in  it,  it  makes  the  vase  look  prettier,  doesn't  it  % " 
And  when  I  answered  yes,  I  thought  it  surely  did, 
he  added  this :  u  And  if  you  have  good,  kind 
thoughts,  it  is  just  like  putting  a  flower  in  your 
heart.  It  makes  it  all  look  prettier  and  smell 
sweeter." 

That  is  a  good  sermon  for  all  of  us  to  remember 
all  the  time,  for  by  themselves  our  hearts  are  like 
empty  vases,  depending  upon  what  sort  of  things 
we  shall  put  in  them.  We  should  think  any  one 
was  very  foolish  who  in  a  lovely  vase  on  a  table  in 
his  room  put  ugly,  ill-smelling  weeds.  Yet  that  is 
what  some  of  us  do  with  our  hearts.  We  put  in 
the  little  weeds  of  ugly  gossip,  or  weeds  of  false* 
hoods  and  spiteful  outbursts  of  ill-temper.  But  if 


168 


A  BOY  WHO  IS  A  PREACHER 


we  want  to,  we  can  do  what  the  little  boy  recom¬ 
mended — we  can  put  into  our  hearts  only  the  good, 
kind  thoughts,  and  the  echoes  of  gentle  words  which 
will  he  like  flowers,  making  all  within  us  and 
around  us  fragrant. 


44 


CLIUKEKS 

DO  you  know  what  is  this  that  I  have  in  my 
hands,  hard  and  rough?  It  is  a  clinker, 
and  any  hoy  who  knows  anything  about 
furnaces  knows  what  a  clinker  is.  It  is  a  mass  of 
stuff  which  melts  up  from  the  dirt  in  the  coal  and 
clogs  up  the  grate  of  the  furnace  so  that  the  fire 
will  not  burn.  If  you  look  at  this  clinker  closely, 
you  will  see  what  sorts  of  things  have  made  it, — 
little  bits  of  slate  and  rock  and  other  impurities 
which  came  with  the  coal,  and  ashes  that  sifted 
down  and  melted  with  the  slate  in  the  fire.  The 
big  clinker  has  become  hard  as  a  rock  in  the  midst 
of  the  flame. 

One  thing  which  helps  to  make  clinkers  is  a  lack 
of  draught.  Underneath  every  furnace  you  know 
there  is  a  little  door  which  lets  in  the  air,  and  the 
air  blowing  up  through  the  grate,  and  through  the 
coal,  keeps  the  fire  burning  hot  and  clean.  If  the 
draught  is  shut  off  too  much,  then  the  coal  smothers 
and  only  half  burns,  and  that  makes  clinkers 
faster. 

Another  cause  which  makes  clinkers  is  a  mis¬ 
taken  thing  which  people  do  when  they  are  tending 

169 


170 


CLINKERS 


furnaces.  At  night  they  want  to  keep  the  fire  low, 
and  so  they  think  they  will  cover  it  on  top  so  that 
it  will  hum  only  very  slowly.  Instead  of  taking 
coal  dust,  they  take  some  ashes  which  have  fallen 
through  the  grate  and  throw  these  on  top  of  the  coal 
to  smother  the  fire  down;  but  the  ashes  will  never 
burn  again,  and  what  they  do  is  to  sift  presently 
through  the  live  coal,  and  the  part  that  does  not 
drop  through  the  grate  helps  to  make  more 
clinkers. 

Did  you  ever  think  of  the  clinkers  which  are  in 
people  ?  “  What  is  the  matter  with  that  boy  and 

girl  ? ”  somebody  asks.  u  They  are  indifferent 
about  everything.  They  do  not  seem  ever  to  do 
their  best.  You  cannot  get  any  enthusiasm  out  of 
them.  They  never  warm  up  to  the  fine  duties  and 
the  work  which  they  ought  to  be  glad  about.  They 
are  like  fires  which  only  half  burn.” 

The  trouble  is  that  they  have  got  the  clinkers  of 
indifference  in  their  hearts.  These  have  formed 
there  because  they  did  not  let  the  draught  of  the 
thoughts  of  God  blow  enough  through  their  hearts. 
They  have  let  the  fires  smother  in  the  close  air  of 
their  own  selfishness.  Or  they  have  made  the  other 
mistake  which  people  make  with  furnaces.  They 
have  put  ashes  on  top  when  they  ought  to  have  put 
coal.  They  have  thought,  when  they  did  not  have 
anything  very  hard  to  do,  that  any  sort  of  stuff 
would  work  to  keep  the  fire  going,  and  instead  of 
putting  their  best  strength  into  the  new  duty,  they 


CLINKERS 


171 


have  put  only  some  burned-out  part  of  themselves 
which  is  left  after  they  have  finished  doing  the 
things  they  wanted  to  do.  So  the  fire  is  smothered, 
and  the  fine  enterprises  which  they  ought  to  help 
keep  warm  are  chilled. 

The  only  thing  to  do  with  clinkers  is  to  rake 
them  out.  Every  once  in  a  while  the  man  who 
tends  the  furnace  must  pitch  in  and  clean  the 
grates,  even  if  it  takes  a  lot  of  time  and  trouble. 
So  once  in  a  while  we  must  clean  the  grates  of  our 
hearts.  We  must  get  out  all  the  old  clinkers  of 
indifference  and  don’t-care,  so  that  the  fires  of 
strength  and  gladness  will  burn  clear  and  bright. 


45 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD,  AFTD  CHRISTMAS 


A  LITTLE  while  ago  I  heard  of  something 
nice  which  a  little  boy  said  to  his  father, 
and  it  was  such  a  nice  thing  to  say  that  I 
think  a  great  many  other  boys  and  girls  will  want 
to  go  and  say  it  to  their  fathers  and  mothers,  too. 
The  little  boy  was  playing  one  day  in  the  room 
where  his  father  was,  and  of  a  sudden  he  left  his 
toys  and  came  and  climbed  up  on  his  father’s  chair. 
“  Daddy,”  he  said,  “  I  love  you  and  I  want  to  do 
something  about  it !  ” 

The  little  boy  was  exactly  right.  All  at  once 
it  had  come  to  him  what  love  really  is.  It  is  not 
just  saying  words.  It  is  not  an  idle  feeling.  It 
is  knowing  that  somebody  else  is  so  dear  to  you, 
and  being  so  thankful  that  somebody  else  is  so  good 
to  you,  that  you  must  “  do  something  about  it.” 

Perhaps  the  little  boy  had  begun  to  think  of  the 
sort  of  ways  in  which  other  people  loved  him. 
There  was  his  father.  His  father  loved  him,  and 
his  father  was  always  “  doing  something  about  it.” 
Didn’t  his  father  go  down  town  every  morning  and 
work  hard  all  day  so  that  he  could  make  a  living 
for  his  family,  and  have  the  money  to  buy  the  food, 
and  clothes,  and  all  the  nice  things  with  which  the 

little  boy  was  surrounded  ?  Didn’t  he  every  once  in 

172 


\ 


LOVE  OF  GOD,  AND  CHRISTMAS  173 


a  while,  when  he  went  off  on  a  trip,  bring  back  the 
wonderfulest  surprise  with  him — that  big  toy  boat 
with  the  sails  that  went  up  and  down,  the  Robinson 
Crusoe  book  with  coloured  pictures  in  it,  and  the 
other  things  which  he  knew  a  boy  would  like  ?  And 
didn’t  his  father  play  ball  with  him  in  the  evenings 
if  he  got  home  before  supper,  or  in  the  winter  read 
to  him  before  the  fire  ?  He  did  not  have  to  wonder 
whether  or  not  his  father  loved  him,  because  his 
father  was  “  doing  something  about  it  ”  every 
day. 

Then  it  was  the  same  way  with  his  mother. 
Didn’t  he  remember  how  once  he  was  sick  in  bed 
a  long,  long  time,  and  how  whenever  he  woke  up 
at  night,  ail  hot  and  restless  with  the  fever,  there 
was  his  mother’s  face  bending  over  him  and  his 
mother’s  touch  so  comforting  and  cool?  Who  was 
it  but  his  mother  whom  he  ran  to  that  day  when 
he  cut  his  hand  on  the  broken  glass?  And  didn’t 
he  go  to  her  about  every  single  thing  he  needed, 
and  get  her  to  help  find  the  toys  that  he  couldn’t 
find  ?  And  wasn’t  she  always  teaching  him  new 
games  to  play,  and  didn’t  she  give  him  that  party 
on  his  birthday — and  was  there  really  anything  at 
all,  anywhere,  which  made  him  happiest  that  she 
did  not  have  a  hand  in  ?  All  the  time  she  was  lov¬ 
ing  him,  and  all  the  time  she  was  u  doing  some¬ 
thing  about  it.” 

So  that  is  what  made  the  boy  of  a  sudden  climb 
upon  his  father’s  chair  and  tell  him — and  when  his 


174  LOVE  OF  GOD,  AND  CHRISTMAS 


mother  came  in  I  suppose  he  told  her  the  same — 
that  he  wanted  to  “  do  something  about  it  ”  to  show 
his  love  for  the  ones  he  loved.  What  could  he  do  ?, 
he  asked  his  father.  What  could  he  do  to  show  his 
love  to  him?  And  his  father  told  him  that  the 
very  best  thing  his  boy  could  do  for  him  was  to  be 
very  loving  to  the  one  that  both  of  them  loved  best, 
which  was  his  mother;  and  his  father  taught  him 
some  of  the  ways  in  which  he  could  do  something 
about  that.  He  told  him  how  he  could  stop  and 
think  and  plan  what  would  make  his  mother  hap¬ 
piest,  and  be  considerate  in  the  little  things  that 
would  keep  her  from  getting  tired.  He  told  him 
how  he  could  always  go  to  where  his  mother  was 
when  he  wanted  to  ask  her  anything  instead  of 
calling  for  his  mother  to  come  to  him,  and  how  he 
could  find  her  a  chair  and  persuade  her  to  sit  down 
when  she  needed  rest,  and  be  glad  to  run  errands 
for  her  and  take  all  sorts  of  trouble  for  her?  and 
keep  a  happy  face,  because  that  made  her  glad.  All 
that  would  be  doing  something  about  the  love  the 
boy  had  for  his  father,  because  it  would  be  making 
his  father  know  that  his  boy  wanted  to  be  like  him, 
and  to  do  the  things  his  father  would  want  to  do. 

Then  there  was  another  thing  his  father  told 
him.  He  said  that  the  love  of  God  is  just  like  the 
kind  of  love  the  little  boy  wanted  to  show.  It  is 
a  love  that  is  always  “  doing  something  about  it.” 

At  Christmas  time  especially  we  remember  that. 
For  the  Father  in  heaven  saw  that  His  children 


LOVE  OF  GOD,  AND  CHRISTMAS  175 


here  on  earth  needed  someone  to  teach  them  to  be 
good,  and  so  to  be  glad  and  happy;  and  He  gave  the 
one  greatest  gift  He  had.  He  gave  His  own  best 
beloved  Son  to  come  down  to  he  a  little  baby  in 
Bethlehem,  and  to  be  a  boy  in  Nazareth,  and  to 
grow  into  the  Man  who  went  about  doing  good 
everywhere — helping  people  who  had  done  wrong 
to  w7ant  to  be  good,  helping  the  poor  to  feel  rich 
because  He  loved  them,  helping  everybody  to  learn 
how  beautiful  life  could  be  when  they  lived  it  in 
His  way.  So  God,  who  loved  the  world,  u  did 
something  about  it,”  and  Jesus,  the  Son  of  God, 
went  everywhere  making  men  remember  that  love 
because  He  remembered  it  too. 

And  at  Christmas  time  we  must  learn  the  lesson 
of  that  love  of  God.  He  has  loved  us  and  given 
us  all  the  beautiful  gift  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  And 
we  must  u  do  something  about  it.”  We  must  try 
to  make  other  people  happy.  We  must  not  think 
only  of  what  we  hope  other  people  will  give  us,  but 
think  of  the  poor,  and  the  unhappy,  and  the  little, 
friendless  children  to  whom  we  can  carry  gifts  for 
the  sake  of  Jesus. 

“  For  dearly,  dearly  has  He  loved, 

And  we  must  lave  Him,  too.” 

And  the  best  way  of  all  to  show  that  we  love 
Him  is — 

“  To  try  His  works  to  do.” 


Printed  in  United  States  of  America 


4 


: 


Date  Due 


